L1BJ{AR^0]M>)NGKESS. 



^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^ 



V-* 



,«»' 



THE 



VISION OF JUDGMENT, 



OR 



THE SOUTH CHURCH 



ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS 



VIEWED FROM 



Celestial and Satanic Stand-points, 



^ r/ X 



By Quevedo Redivivus, Jr. 

i8G7 

- ^ NEW YORK: "^°^VV&shlt^-: 
VAN EVRIE, HORTON & CO., 

162 Nassau Street. 
1867. 



1-0 23 L^ 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, 

By R. W. WRIGHT, ^r^S..y U^.-^Ji, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Connecticut. 



PREFACE 



Brevity is the life of a preface as it is the soul of wit. And this is 
infallibly true of all prefaces. None are ever read, or ever should be, 
unless spiced with this essential element of wit. Not that a brief 
preface is necessarily witty, or a witty one brief; but, its office being 
simply that of a personal introduction, anything like tediousness is 
intolerable. "Whatever the author may say of himself, therefore, or of 
his "literary bantling," will be rigidly brief and to the point. In as- 
suming the qualified title, and the nom de plume, to one of the most spirit- 
ed and pungent satires ever written, he neither challenges criticism, 
nor declines it. As he makes no pretension to having reached the 
splendid original, so he offers no apology for having fallen below it. 
What he has written must stand or fall on its own merits, and will do 
so, in spite of censure or praise. All that he claims is, that the poem 
is Truth, as seen from his stand-point. "Whether it be living Satire or 
not, is another question, and one on which it would be the height of 
presumption for him to pass judgment. It was written in the autumn 
and winter of 1864-5, and has only seen the light, because of the flat- 
tering, and, it may be, too partial opinion expressed of it by a few 
literary friends. The only thing the author regrets is, that it is pub- 



rV PREFACE. 

lished at a time when an impartial criticism is impossible. The Pulpit 
of the country has so intensified the political animosities and hates of 
the American people, that there is no part of the habitable globe where 
there is so much passion, prejudice, and rank, disreputable error, 
to cloud the individual judgment, as in the United States, at the pres- 
ent time. But this cannot always be. The Political Pulpit is bound 
to break down by the weight of its own infamy, and, when that time 
comes, the satirical pen may safely turn its mummeries into ridicule. 
Well will it be with America, when she joyfully hails her coming 
Satirist, and welcomes the lash with which her folHes are scourged 
from the light of day. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. 



Host. " I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod time." 

Kin^ Henry IV. 
Stew. " What dost thou know me for V" 

Kent. " A knave ; a rascal ; a lily-livered, super-serviceable, finical rogue ; 
one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny'st the 
least syllable of thy addition." 

King Lear. 
Bum. " Most rare Pompey ! 
Boyet. Renowned Pompey ! 

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey ! Pompey, the huge !' 

Love's Labor Lost. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



I. 



Saint Peter wept at the celestial gate : 
His keys were gone — clean rusted were they out, 

So closely had the devil kept of late 

A watch for souls that wandered thereabout; 

And by his side the last lost Peri sate, ^ 
Weeping to see the fearful rabble-rout, 

Or ghostly thi'ong, that took the other way, — 

The devil's pike that shunned the gates of day. 
I 



II. 

The angels all were harping on one string, 
A single note harmonious filled the sky ; 

No seraph ventured to unfurl his wing, 

Lest soaring upward he might soar too high. 

And on himself celestial umbrage bring, 
For thus disturbing heaven's equality ; 

For heaven, like earth, was in one mighty pother. 

Lest some one angel should o'ertop another. 

III. 

One guardian seraph only kept the earth : 
The rest had all retired at length on high, 

Finding then- charges here of little worth, 
Save to provoke the laughter of the sky. 

Or some sheer outburst of celestial mirth, 
As folly stalked more impudently by ; 

Wearing her cap and bells as proof to show 

That fools commissioned ruled the earth below. 

IV. 

The swift recording angel drove his quill 
With such celerity, it seemed to fly 

And dart its record down of human ill, 
As erst the lightnmg leapt from murky sky 

On Jove-defiant Titans it would kill ; 
And yet the record, in its darkest dye, 

Was incomplete : not half the ills were shown. 

And those that were so, were not half writ down. 



Volume on volume swelled the black bureau, 
As, with his flashing, diamond-pointed pen. 

He struck the balances of human woe 

'Gainst some " three thousand fighting clergymen" — 

Priests of Bellona, as their garments show ; 
Whom now the world might honor, not contemn, 

If, like the Bellonarii of Rome, ^ 

The blood they shed, had only been their own ! 

VI. 

The one rapt seraph that remained on earth, 
Seemed with angelic pity to look down 

On the mad revel and unseemly mirth ^ 

That 'mid sepulchral horrors filled the town ; 

For never since this planet had its birth 
From out of chaos wild, had there been known 

A more incongruous and discordant jar 

Than now uprose from din of mirth and war. 

YII. 

Awhile the seraph pondered as in doubt 
Whether to take her r^pward flight or stay 

And see this horrid hurly-burly out, — 
This mirth in death and death in revelry ; 

And as she lingered, there uprose a shout 
That died not in the distance far away, 

But swelled in volume as it swept along 

From distant field of c;irnage whence it sprung. 



YIII. 

Some thirty thousand had gone down that day 
On the red field of death, and still the thirst 
For blood was unappeased. The mangled lay 
• In fragments strewn, as if the fiends accurst 
Had played on them with hell's artillery, 

Shotted with " devils damn'd" — all quick to burst 
In shrieks and yells upon the afi"righted air. 
Those messengers of death that hurtled there ! 

IX. 

Fierce raged the conflict — Greek to Greek the foe ; 

Columns 'gainst columns dashed like walls of fire 
Darting their lurid death-flames to and fro, 

As dari the lightnings from two clouds in ire, 
Marshaling their thunders for the dread '* set to" — 

The final struggle of the powers of air ; 
One fearful crash as if the heavens were rent, 
And backward they recoil, their forces spent. 

X. 

'Twas thus they fought, and thus they fighting fell, 
These Anglo-Saxon tigers on the field. 

Without a passion in their breasts to quell, 
Save the undying purpose not to yield ; 

And this from passion grew to passion's spell, 
At once a helmet, buckler, sword and shield: 

And so Death held high carnival the while, 

In blood that flowed from Abolition bile ; 



XI. 

But not from Abolition veins. Oh, no ; 

Such diabolic blood as this to spill 
Had been, upon the part of Death, a blow 

Aimed at the very sovereignty of hell ; 
And Lucifer had stood aghast, with brow 

In triple horror knit, at thought of ill 
So threatening to hi 3 sovereignty and state, 
As having in hell a set so reprobate ! 

XII. 

And so Death played the pantomime, and gave 
Himself all forms and shapes and qualities, 

As if his mission were to play the knave ; 
Ensocketing his ghastly skull with eyes 

That flamed like basilisks', that he might have 
The power to strike men blind, or on them seize 

With such stark horror as to freeze to stone 

Their every muscle, fibre, tissue, bone ! 

XIII. 

And wore upon his breast a fiery shield, 

Embossed with gorgons' heads, each one as dire 

As that by Perseus borne in starry field; ^ 

And thus arrayed, he quenched the fierce desire 

Of these mad Jacobins for war, who spoiled 
For fight at first, but when it came in fire 

And blood, and wrapt the Nation's heart in flame, 

Preferred all otlier deaths to dying "game." 



10 

XIV. 

And so they lived — these valiant men of war — 
Like those who fought, and, fighting, ran away, 

Lest being hoisted with their own petard, 
They might not live to fight another day ; 

And thus hell 'scaped all temporary jar, 
Through Death's adroitness and dexterity ; 

He substituting " horrors" on the brain, 

For the *' spent negro," as a coup de main ! 

XV. 

And a grand coup it proved. That mighty number — 
The fierce "nine hundred thousand Tribune men" — ^ 

Who never smelt gun -powder, for a wonder. 
And never meant to, till "Old Abraham's" pen 

Should "knock the sand," with one broad sweep, from under 
The Constitution—" our great curse and bane;" 

When they were all to rush like tigers forth. 

And vindicate the honor of the North ! 

XVI. 

This mighty host "in buckram" — Greeley's men, — 
Who bravely snuffed the battle from afar, 

No sooner got " Death's horrors" on the brain. 

Than, like Job's war-horse, they cried out "Ha, ha!" 

Yet not like him to paw the battle plain, 

Or clothe themselves in thunder for the war ; 

But skulk behind their famous " Loyal Leagues," 

Where they might hatch anew their vile intrigues. 



11 



XVII. 

And there these precious incubators sat, 
To moult each traitorous Abolition feather 

For "loyal" plumage, as if this for that 

Could be thus mewed to suit the wind or weather ; 

Or they could hide the baldest traitor's pate, 
As vultures theirs, with head and wing together ; 

Or could, by putting on their "loyal" airs. 

Cover the traitor's as the ass's ears ! 

XVIII. 

Saint Peter wept at the celestial gate : 
How long he had been weeping no one knew, 

Save that the grass-grown pavement where he sate, 
Was covered most profusely with the dew 

Of his spent grief, or seemed at any rate 
To be thus covered, as his grief now grew, 

By a transition strangely quick and sudden. 

Into a fit of — apostolic dudgeon ! 

XIX. 

Over against the sapphire walls he heard 
A most confused and supernatural clatter 

Of human tongues, as if by demons stirred 
To mutiny and strife, about some matter 

He knew not of what moment, nor much cared ; 
Only it seemed his tympanum to shatter, ^ 

As if some comet from the etherial voids. 

Had smashed the earth up into asteroids ! 



12 

XX. 

And taking up his telescope, he swept 
At first the outer rim of that vast sea, 

Whereon each universe, in order kept, 

Discoursed the mighty spherics of the sky ; 

But finding nothing out of place except 
A star or two, that went " skedaddling" by, 

He brought his instrument at length to bear 

Upon the only " fallen" planet there. 

XXI. 

And much to his surprise, he found it whole, 
And not in fragments strewn, as he expected ; 

Although he thought it reeled about its pole 
With its obliquity somewhat affected 

By the last comet, in its lawless stroll ; 

And while thus looking, fancied he detected 

Some fiery perturbations on its crust. 

Like old Vesuvius on another *' bust." 

XXII. 

And then he turned and asked the radiant Peri 
That still sat weeping at the gates of light. 

If her celestial tympanum were weary 
Of mortal sound, or eye of mortal sight ; 

If not, he'd like to have her solve a query 
That now began to have perplexing weight 

With him at least ; for since the birth of matter, 

There'd not been heard in heaven so vile a clatter 



13 

xxni. 

As smote upon celestial eai*s that day, 

And stirred within his breast a touch of anger ; 

And if the Peri would now wing her way 

(Which she might do without material danger, 

Since hers was not a frame that mortal clay 
Could taint,) to that terrestrial dog-in-manger 

Planet, that on its oblique axis whirls 

Between the upper and the nether worlds, 

XXIV. 

And ascertain the cause of all this strife, 

And bear report of what she learned to heaven, 

He'd ope to her again the gates of life, 

With all her erring past at once forgiven : — 

The Peri heard and dashed aside her grief 
As if the pall of glory had been riven, 

And flashes of celestial light had burst 

Upon her soul, so long for heaven athirst ! 

XXV. 

And upward bounds a starry thing of light, 
And on her flashing pinions darts away, 

Skirting at first the confines of old Night 
And then the flaming corridors of Day, 

As if she sought, in her impetuous flight, 

To gain some point from which she might survey 

The far out-reaching distance, as it ran. 

From heaven to earth — from seraph down to man. 



14 



XXVI. 

Awhile she hovered o'er this ** vasty deep," 
As if she felt the fearful gift of wings ; 

A feeling that we sometiQies have in sleep 

When conscience too much troubles with its stings, 

And we essay to fly some donjon-keep, 

Or span the gulf where demon laughter rings ; 

A thousand fathoms plumb we fall at once, 

And yet awake without a broken sconce. 

XXYII. 

So dropped the radiant Peri from on high : 
Nine times the space the last great comet swept 

By its broad pennon streaming on the sky, 
Plump down she fell, nor thought to intercept 

Her flight until she reached the Milky-Way — 

That glittering pavement where the stars still kept 

Their place in heaven, nor madly sought to rush 

From out their spheres, some other world to crush ! 

XXVIII. 

And reaching now the outer bounds of space. 

Along the distant star-swept galaxy. 
Where heaven begins and cosmic wonders cease, 

The Peri lights upon a nebulae, 
Or Magellanic cloud, that holds its place ^ 

High up the mighty archway of the sky 
That props the stars ; where Orphiucus rides ^ 
His scaly monster with his glistening sides. 



15 

XXIX. 

And stayed her flight awhile, as if to take 
Her reckoning by the lights that dimly shone 

Along the old Chaldean zodiac ; ^ 

Where daring mortals, mortals dared enthrone, 

Displacing gods, gods of themselves to make ; 
As if the heavens were theirs, and sun and moon 

And stars, and all within the glittering cope, 

Were simply made to point a telescope. 

XXX. 

Her flight resumed, she cleaves the nether air, 
Or rather ether, with her wings outspread, 

And guided by the light of falling star, 

(yhance-hurled from high, and flaming as it sped, 

She makes the star-loved pathway that is near ; 
That glittering pavement that is " thick inlaid 

With patins of bright gold," where seraphs fly 

Upon their angel errands through the sky, ^ ^ 

XXXT. 

A.nd now with swift and sight-outrunning speed 
Earthward she makes her way, a thing of light, 

Dashing the stars aside like fiery steed 
Seen in prophetic visions of the night ; 

While all the glittering host about her fade. 
Or rather pale their fires to mortal sight : 

So radiantly the Peri flashes forth. 

An astronomic wonder to the earth ! 



16 

XXXII. 

Old Yale, as usual, is the first to bring 
Her achromatic instrument to bear ' ^ 

Upon the stranger with the flashing wing. 
Hitting her declination to a hair ; 

And satisfied with this, essays a fling 

At Cambridge, perched in astronomic chair, 

Whose sleepy Magi all their gumption tax. 

In vain attempts to get her parallax ! ^ ^ 

XXXIII. 

Meanwhile she burns upon the evening sky 
With such intensity, she seems to throw 

The most imperial star-gem set on high 
Into eclipse by her imperial glow ; 

Still flaming on her course, a fiery eye 
That darts into men's souls, as if to know 

The secret workings of each human heart. 

Whether to heaven allied, or hell, or what. 

XXXIV. 

And when at length she nears the outmost strata 
Of cosmic ether (as our atmosphere 

Is vaguely called by modern nomenclator,) 
Her fiery aspects cease and disappear, 

And that so suddenly, it knocks all data 
By telescope obtained while poked at her; 

Yale first involves the mystery deep in doubt, 

Then thinks another world has been snuff'ed out ! 



17 

XXXV. 

And while she takes her mammoth star-chart down 
To note the place of this celestial wonder, 

The radiant Peri lights within the town; 
Dashing a sky-mere cloud or two in sunder, 

Down whose bright rifts the langhing moonbeams shone. 
Dappling the graveled walks the broad elms under 

With fleckered light, that leapt their foliage through, 

And fell a shower of pearls along the dew ! 

XXXVI. 

It was a Sabbath evening. Far and near 

The bells pealed out their clangor on the town. 

As if to summon all the world to prayer, 
By fighting orthodoxy *' done up brown;" 

A prayer for strife on earth — red-handed war — 
Ill-will to men — and heaven's indignant frown 

On the "South Church"— where Christ alone was preached, 

And the " almighty nigger" went unbleached ! 

XXXVII. 

'Twas a strange church, and stranger still the theme 
On which it dwelt. The throes of agony 

Felt by the dying Christ in that extreme 
Of death he suffered, groaning on the tree. 

To vindicate the Father's name supreme, 
And yet uplift a world from its apostacy ; 

Dying himself that others might not die — 

The great Lamb-offering for humanity : 



18 



XXXYIII. 

And though this mighty theme once floated down 
The sky upon the harps of angels, and 

Thrilled a Universe with rapture all its own, 
(For seraphs shared not in a heaven regained. 

But only wondered and adored when shown 
The mystery of the cross,) yet few retained 

Their ancient faith, and zeal, and Christian rigor. 

But worshipped only the " almighty nigger." 

XXXIX. 

And setting up this " god in ebony" 

Upon the pedestal of mortal hate. 
They sought, like Mahomet of Araby, 

With fire and sword their faith to propagate; 
Swearing the Pentateuch to be a lie, 

And every prophet but a vile ingrate. 
Who forged the word of G-od, in lying staves, 
To make "the heathen round about" their slaves! 

XL. 

And holding Paul up as a vile Apostle, 
To send Onesimus, a slave, from Rome 

Back to his Phrygian master, one most hostile 

To freedmen's rights, when clashing with his own ; 

And anxious above all to be the " boss" still 
Of this same fugitive, for reasons shown ; 

For Paul informs Philemon in his letter. 

That he's improved his slave much for the better ; 



19 

XLI. 

That is, has sent him back " in double bonds" — 
Those of the flesh as well as in the Lord, 

Without the aid of gyves or Spanish hounds, 
But by the potency of his preached word ; 

And seems to think the servant that absconds, 
Lacks wholesome knowledge, or has simply heard 

Perverse disputings by some railing pastor, 

Who follows not the precepts of his Master. 

XLII. 

And parsons of this stripe had come to be 
The universal wranglers of the town ; 

The orators and flamens of the day. 

Who trode the earth with magisterial frown 

As if it ought to quake as they passed by 
With their " white chokers," or look humbly down 

And crave their lordly feet to trample on't, 

As Xerxes did, who flogged the Hellespont, 

XLIII. 

And trundled old Mount Athos in the sea, 
Or threatened to, if it would not come down 

And let his royal mightiness pass by ; 

So consequential had these parsons grown, 

So vain and supercilious in their way : 
Deeming the world no doubt a well-fleshed bone 

For them to gnaw at, or a stalking ass 

Intent to bray them honors as they pass ! 



20 

XLIV. 

A vain conceit of theirs, and one that shows 
Their mental vision sadly turned awry : 

The world is assinine enough, God knows, 
To wear alone the ass's livery ; 

But they dispute its honors and disclose 
By far the greater assininity ; 

Pelting the world with sermons, just to show 

How one ass spites another here below ! 

XLV. 

I beg the world its pardon. Nothing here 
Is meant for its disparagement or praise : 

I only aim a shaft at those who wear 
The ass's ears, and yet refuse his bays ; 

Who think the universal world should stare, 
And gape amazement at their crude displays 

Of ethics, morals, politics, and*so forth, 

Whenever they their learning choose to show forth ! 

XLYI. 

One of these high ecclesiastic lords 

Who held the world his debtor, though but few 
Drew heavier on its largess (which accords 

Its pound of flesh to every hungry Jew, 
And yet denies its blood, as that affords 

Scant guerdon to the Christian) proudlier grew 
In his demeanor as he grew in years. 
Although he preached to emptier walls than ears ! 



21 

XLVII. 

He was the mighty "kraken" of the church, ^^ 
Or rather ** congregation" that no church is, 

And dealt with certain parsons pretty much 
As krakens do with ships within their clutches; 

He either dragged them down with his first touch, 
Or stayed them up to get a better purchase : 

That is, to get them fully in his tentacles. 

Or "kraken" limbo, id est, church conventicles! 

XLVIII. 

He grappled with the " South Church" as the kraken 
Did with the Dutch ship in the northern sea, ^ ^ 

Which seemed at first effectually to rake in 
Hulk, mast and spars, with his tentaculse ; 

But the Dutch sailors, fancying it a " take in," 
Seized hatchet, axe, and sabre on the sly, 

And ere the huge Briareus felt a scratch, his 

Hundred arms lay quivering on the hatches ! 

XLIX. 

This sent the kraken croaking down the sea. 
As if he'd caught an unexpected Tartar 

In the Dutch tars that lopped his branchiae. 
And sent him howling like a wreck of matter 

Hurled by Titanic forces through the sky ; 
The Lilliputian fish, affrighted, scatter 

In all directions, while the intrepid whale 

Fans the old kraken with his playful tail. 
2 



22 

L. 

His story learned, the universal wish is 

Of all convened, to have a liigli court-martial. 

Or ichthyologic council of big fishes, 
To try the craft that dared to seek those glacial 

And icy regions, where no other dish is 

Found to which the kraken's half so partial, 

As a staunc^ ship that braves both wind and weather, 

With a big crew, to swallow altogether ! 

LI. 

The council was convened without delay : 
A motley group it proved and slightly scaly ; 

' Ring-streaked and speckled" were they in their way. 
As much so as the tenants of " Old Bailey." 

The shark was present and inclined to prey, 
A pious trick he had and practiced daily ; 

For sharks, like certain priests, grow hugely pious. 

When with some sinister design they eye us. 

LII. 

The ship was libelled by the finny tribes 
As a " most dangerous and piratic sail," 

Jack Porpoise acting as the " chief of scribes" ^ ^ 
(And thereby hangs a parenthetic tale); 

Spouting his little stream of diatribes. 
And trying very hard to play the whale ; 

For this pretentious fish will blow and spout. 

Both in his proper element and out ! 



23 

LIII. 

He had withal a clever knack at skimming 
The surface of a deep and ruffled sea, 

And rode the topmost wave, as if 'twere hymning 
Some grand old stave for him to wallow by ; 

His head meanwhile with surface water brimming, 
Until it almost burst in giddy spray ; 

If spray it might be called; that seemed to swash, 

Through his spent gills, in metaphoric " bosh !" 

LIY. 

He thought the wily craft should be assailed 
With all the deadly weaponry they had, 

And all on board effectually impaled 
For the temerity that they'd displayed. 

The sword-fish, he contended, never failed 
To pierce the staunchest bottom ever made ; 

And as for the torpedo, should he shock her, 

He'd send them all to Davy Jones' locker ! 

LV. 

And then, the whale his giant flukes might use 
To more advantage, if he'd leave off spouting, 

And not attempt to ventilate his flues 

In every sea he chanced to stick his snout in ; 

No " loyal" fish should hesitate to use 

The weapons that he found himself most stout in 

And, hence, the whale should use alone his flukes in 

These atrabilious seas the sailor puhes in ! 



24 

LYI. 

Here all the little fishes wagged their tails 

In high approval of his proposition, 
And voted Jack to be the " prince of whales," 

Who spouted, as it were, by intuition ; 
And seldom floundered, save in certain gales 

That set the sea in state of ebullition ; 
And then, he knew not on which end his tail was, 
Or whether he a whale in sea or pail was ! 

LVII. 

The whale, inclined to be somewhat facetious, 
Admitted that Jack Porpoise had some qualities 

That were not altogether adventitious : 

For instance, he could deal in certain jollities, 

And still be grave and reverend, though officious ; 
Or furnish an example of what folly 'tis. 

In certain fishes, to indulge in " splurging," 

That cannot hold a candle to a sturgeon ! 

LYIII. 

He was himself indignant that the kraken 
Had got so vile and dastardly a clip, 

But lopping off his limbs had " saved his hacon,'" 
As all might see who duly scanned the ship ; 

For with a crew on board as god-forsaken 
As any that e'er ventured on such trip. 

She had (in contact with the fires that heat her) 

A ton or two of villainous saltpeter ! 



25 

LIX. 

And had the kraken pocketed the vessel 
In his rapacious and tremendous wallet, 

He certainly had caught (as one may guess) hell, 
Or such a seething sea as never squall hit. 

A sorry feast it is to simply press hell 
Upon one's appetite until you pall it ; 

So thought the whale that ventured once to sup 

Upon the fiery prophet he spewed up. 

LX 

For he'd no sooner lodged him 'neath his gills, 
Than he began to have as deadly qualm 

As if he'd swallowed fifty thousand pills 
Of ipecacuanha, in one man ; 

And had besides, a ton or two of quills. 
From bristling porcupine, into him run : 

This was too much for any whale to stand, 

And so he threw up Jonah on dry land ! 

LXI. 

Now, if the whale had suffered so much torture 
From having lined his belly with one man, 

What pangs had rent the kraken when he caught your 
Fifty Dutch tars that roved o'er the main % 

And with them a torpedo that had brought your 
Flesh and blood to rush in one wild vein ; 

Or, rather, blown the kraken into jelly. 

And turned up every fish upon his belly ! 



26 

9 

LXir. - 

This was a perfect ichthyologic clincher, 

(I mean the argument the whale had made,) 

And caused Jack Porpoise to look " every inch a" 
Minnow, sadly thrown into the shade ; 

Although he'd once obtained, upon a pinch, a 
Reputation for a fast young blade. 

And tried his hand at distancing the Dolphin, 

Whose straight two-forty gait showed he was all fin ! ^ 

LXIII 

And so the "council" ended in thin spray. 
Or what is metaphorically called " smoke," 

Leaving the kraken in his agony. 

To fret and chafe and rage and fume and choke ; 

Like some old autocrat who's had his day. 

And finds the chains that held his subjects broke: 

At first he storms terrifically and swears, 

And then a monastery seeks, and says his prayers. 

LXIV. 

Meanwhile the ship, like a high prancing steed. 
That knows his rider yet unheeds his weight, 

Keeps on her course with steadier, loftier tread, 
And tramples down the waves beneath her feet : 

No kraken's council does she deign to heed, 
However fierce its wrath or spent its hate ; 

But breasts her way the liquid mountains through, 

As if her strength from obstacles she drew. 



27 

LXV. 

The kraken's tentacles, wlien first lopped off, 
Occasioned some slight stir among the crew ; 

They writhed and squirmed like serpents when they slough, 
Or seek to do so, their old hides for new : 

In their contortions playing blind-man's-buff 
Like anacondas that are cut In two, 

And " go it blind" as to each several half, 

Not knowing whether head or tail is off! 

LXYI 

But their fandango ended, they were thrown 

Into the jaws of the remorseless sea. 
Which soon devoured them up, and left alone 

The good ship and her crew, to make their way 
With the same favoring breezes that had blown, 

Before the kraken sought them as his prey ; 
Or rather, sought clandestinely to drag 'em 
Down to his favorite den, where he might bag 'em ! 

LXYII. 

Quintilian furnishes the world this story. 
And vouches for its truth, which I'll not do : 

That there was once a huge conservatory 
Just out of Rome, where rare exotics grew, 

Fresh from the East, in all their floral glory, 
From distant Gades brought, or Timbuctoo ; 

Where birds of rarest plumage poured their throats 

Upon the air in rapture-thrilling notes. 



28 

LXVIII. 

'Twas what in Rome they called a liortus Jloreus, 
And was the property of one who'd been 

A wild roue in youth, or most notorious 
For certain vices Rome then reveled in ; 

When from her seven hills she frowned victorious 
O'er Scotia, Gaul, Sarmatia, and the Ind. ; 

Conquering a world for glory and for pelf, 

But ending in vile conquest of herself. 

LXIX. 

The owner of this hortus Jloreus rare 

Supplied his grounds with artificial showers, 

That from a thousand^'e^^ d'eau leapt in air, 
And fell in glittering spray-drift 'mong the flowers 

Scattering their perfume prodigally there 
'Mid shady nooks and quiet shelvy bowers, 

Where flowed Falernian for the fairest women, 

With most voluptuous baths for them to swim in. 

LXX. 

Music he had, and mirth, and jest, and laughter, 

To stir his laggard senses into play. 
And keep his vices, which came dangling after, 

Where they might seem like virtues kept at bay ; 
A trick by which a certain Boston pastor 

Relieved his vices when he went to pray. 
Making the worldlings of a hotel stare 
At wine and women, as post-prandial fare! 



29 



LXXI. 

This rich old Roman had, it seems, a neighbor, — 
A youth far-famed for culture of his bees — 

Swarms from Hymettus, or from old Mount Tabor, 
Then lately garrisoned beyond the seas ; 

Who ne'er had learned to hew and hack with sabre, 
But lived a life of philosophic ease, — 

His honey finding him a host of patrons, 

Especially among the Roman matrons. 

LXXII. 

This galled the old man's liver — made him bilious. 
Or " atrabilious," as the phrase then went; 

And peevish grown, and vain, and supercilious, 
He to the youth this haughty message sent : 

(Quoting a line or two from old Lucilius 
To give it point, or give his spleen a vent :) 

' I here inform Sk Upstart that his bees 

M ust not filch honey from my premises." 

LXXIII. 

The youth, amused, returns this prompt reply : 

•' If you'll but keep your odors to yourself, 
And not entice my bees abroad to fly, 

I'll henceforth guard against their petty pelf, 
And leave Sir Dotard in his dignity — 

A cracked old goblet laid upon the shelf : 
One that might brim again with grape, no doubt. 
If it were not effectually played out." 



30 

LXXIV. 

Now, as the story goes, the old man went 
To an apothecary, beneath the Quernian, 

In search of certain herbs his spleen to vent, 
Or hellebore that grew beyond the Lernian : — 

A lake whose fell malaria oft spent 

Itself in fevers, that were called quaternian ; 

Or every fourth day made one shake and shiver. 

As if he had an iceberg in his liver. 

LXXV. 

And there he got some powdered hellebore, 
With which to sprinkle every flower's petal. 

That when the busy swarms approached once more. 
Their fate in this way he might quickly settle ; 

Or better still, contaminate their stoi*e 

Of nectared sweets, and thereby snugly get all 

The young man's patrons into the same boat. 

With grim old Charon, king of Styx, to row 't. 

LXXYI. 

And here the old man chuckled in high glee. 

And hastened homeward with his purchased treasure ' 

Taking the most direct, or Appian way, 

Where many a proud patrician strolled at leisure, 

And frowned upon the plebs as they passed by : 
Deeming their mirth a sort of savage pleasure 

That baser natures take, in being born 

To an inheritance of hate and scorn ! 



31 

LXXVII. 

And reaching now his gardens, he essays 
The task before him, which is quickly done ; 

Each sheltered nook he seeks where fountain plays, 
And spray -lash'd bower, where laughing waters ruD> 

Babbling their mirth to the sweet roundelays 
Of birds that flash their plumage in the sun, 

And pierce the air with music — strewing wide 

His purchased hellebore on every side. 

LXXVIII. 

But as the thief, who, stealing his own purse 
And hiding it in sleep, repents his gains. 

So wakes the old man from his dreams to curse 
The hour he had his labor for his pains ; 

For everywhere his flowers are blasted worse 

Than if some mildew had sucked dry their veins, 

Or some malignant frost-sprite of the air 

Had breathed its blighting curse upon them there. 

LXXIX. 

This story has its moral. I have seen 
A hundred just such old men in my day, 

Grown atrabilious from excess of spleen 
Engendered by their pancreas in this way ; 

Who put on airs, and wore a lofty mien — 

Arching their brows, as if they thought to say 

To all who dared into their presence come, 

' I am sir Oracle, and strike you dumb 1" 



32 



LXXX. 

But who, with neither sense nor wit to see 
How very like a " Cuman ass" they make 

Themselves to others, vainly seek to bray 
Their wisdom in a mortar for the sake 

Of some poor fool that stumbles in their way, 
In search of jewels to adorn his neck : 

As if old Tully's paradox were true. 

That wisdom's thread is folly's golden clue. 

LXXXI. 

Nor is its moral difficult to see : 

Old ^sop would have guessed it at a glance. 
And given us the fable of a tree 

That lopped its highest branches, to advance 
Its upward growth or cut its limbs away, 

Its strength and beauty thereby to enhance ; 
Or — as if into deeper folly sunk — 
To save its life, had girdled its own trunk ! 

LXXXII. 

This story also has its counterpart. 
Or parallel in folly, in those churches 

That seek for hellebore in every mart 

Where they can make clandestinely a purchase, 

And scatter it abroad with just such art 
As Satan uses when he seeks to clutch his 

Victim unawares, or lies in wait 

And flings his twine with golden flies for bait !, 



33 

LXXXIII. 

As he entraps his victims, so do they, 
And with substantially the same design ; 

Which is, to kill all vital piety 

From out the church they seek to undermine : 

Thinking that they may thereby lead astray 
Its shallow-pated members, grown supine 

By reason of their church's moral dearth, — 

The best-known substitute for hell on earth. 

LXXXIV. 

But as ambition oft o'erleaps its mark 

And " falls on t'other side," so now do they, — 

The devil and the churches that embark 
Upon a common emprise in this way ; 

They rob themselves, not others, of the spark 
Vouchsafed by heaven to kindle mortal clay, 

And like Prometheus, chained on dreary isle, ^ ^ 

Suffer the pangs of an immortal bile ! 

LXXXV. 

But episode aside. We left the Peri 

All radiantly alighted fi-om on high, 
Eager to solve the late perplexing query, 

Or questionem vexat. of the sky ; 
And though her flight was long and somewhat dreary, 

And led through many a starless canopy ; 
Yet, on the whole, she fancied it had been 
One worth her while immortal wings to preen. 



34 

LXXXVI. 

It was a Sabbath evening, as we said, 

And in a city boasting of its spires 
And " toppling" steeples pointing overhead, 

Like index fingers to celestial choirs ; 
And universities of stately grade, 

As full of classic honors as of years ; 
Though, latterly, dispensing but a crumb 
Of wisdom, to a ton of pabulum. 

Lxxxvn. 

For "Young America" had come to be 

His own exclusive guide, and lord, and master. 

And flung the old " curriculum" away 

For one that generated speed much faster ; 

Demanding that professors, old and gray. 
Should step aside for young grammaticaster, 

Who proudly spurned each classic stepping-stone, 

And leapt at once o'er the tutorial throne ! 

LXXXVIII. 

It was a classic town, with broad elm trees 

As classic as their classic shade could make 'era, 

Where classic men and women lolled at ease 

'Mid classic honors, thick as one could shake 'em ; 

With here and there its classic coteries, 

With classic badges, that none might mistake 'em, 

And, last not least, its classic Institute, 

Where young ideas old gimcracks learn to shoot ! 



35 



LXXXIX. 



Yet with its classic honors thickly strewn 

As autumn leaves in quiet Valambrosfl, 
The only classic genius it had known ^ ^ 

To tread its classic halls, scarce ever rose a 
peg above a mendicant in town ; 

And would have starved outright, had he not chose a 
Home in the far back-woods, where he died alone, 
Unwept, unhonored, and without a stone ! 

XO. 

Such was the town in which the Peri stood 
Upon the Sabbath evening we have named, 

And wondered at its dismal solitude. 

Though streets were thronged and many a window flamed 

With crimson light that spoke of brothers* blood ; 
While priests their fierce anathemas proclaimed 

Against a sister church, for the strange reason. 

That loyalty to Christ is high State treason ! 

XCI. 

For there had been a council called " exparter 

Held in a chapel in a street hard by, ^^ 
Whose basement was devoted to ecarte 

And stiffest imbibitions of " old rye ;" 
And where the devil laughed no doubt as hearty 

At grim ecclesiastics in his eye. 
As at the games of " poker" played below, 
Or " dice," that won him souls at every throw. 



36 

XCII. 

Three days the council sat — the devil three, 
Each for "deliberation high," of course; 

He in the basement, they in gallery. 

Where low-born comedy once bawled (ill hoarse, 

With nymphs dupave to pirouette en gre ; 
And politicians gathered in full force 

To ride themselves au negre into power, 

Or mount the " nigger" as their grand centaur. 

XCIII. 

They " opened" with a prayer, as we are told, 
At which the devil grinned a ghastly smile, 

And cocked his tail so high that it grew cold 
And through his marrow shot an icy thrill, 

Of such intensity that he made bold 
To take a " cock-tail" to take off the chill : 

Meanwhile he listened with his ears erect, 

As if a second prayer he did expect. 

xciy. 

But they prayed only once — and such a prayer ! 

It capped the climax of the Pharisee, 
In its self-righteous pomp, and strain, and air ; 

And in its " How much holier are we,'' 
Disclosed at once " How very vile you are," 

And everything that comes within your way ; 
Except their own phylacteries, and these 
Were broad enough for fifty Pharisees. 



37 



xov. 

They had put forth against a certain church 

A quasi bull of excommunication, 
Or rather held, " That, whereas, inasmuch 

As gospel preaching was its sole vocation, 
And " loyal" politics it would not touch, 

It sadly needed a denunciation !" 
And so they all united in one bull. 
To simply damn the church they couldn't rule ! 

XCVI. 

And this but added fuel to the flame 

Of that fierce fire which engulphed the town, 

Upon the evening when the Peri came 
Flashing upon her radiant pinions down, 

Making herself the universal theme 
Of wonder to astronomers, till one, 

More lucky than the rest, resolved the doubt, 

By hinting at a universe snuffed out ! 

XCVII. 

The North Church and the Center were ablaze, 
Not with "blue lights," as formerly, but red ; 

And eager throngs were gathered there to praise 
The God of Battles and invoke his aid. 

That one defiant city he might raze. 
Till not a stone upon another laid ; 

To wit, that " moral Sodom" of the plain, 

On which " swamp-angels" poured their iron rain, 
3 



38 



XCYIII. 

Two scenes the Peri witnessed — this and that ; 

And down her seraph cheek there stole a tear 
Of such weird crystal that to gaze thereat, 

Was more than any mortal eye could bear ; 
It was so heavenly and compassionate, 

And full of pity for the woes we share ; 
A.nd as she, sighing, wiped the tear away, 
The parson of the Center rose to pray. 

XCIX. 

But she heard not the invocation, as 

In harsh and grating accents it went forth. 

Keyed to the note of earth's incessant jars ; 
But far away from the war-breathing North, 

In that doomed city — Sodom, that it was, — 
On which was focused all the nation's wrath, 

Another scene engaged the seraph's eye, 

And in an instant she stood trembling by. 



'Twas in a Christian church, and strange to say. 
Beneath the same broad heaven that shields us herej 

Whose spire went upward, in the same mute way. 
To guide earth's weary, way-worn traveler; 

And men presumed to breathe, on bended knee, 
The same cherubic element — God's air ; 

And that in praise that dared with ours to vie, 

Upborne to Him who hears the raven's cry ! 



39 

CI. 

And at the altar stood a fair-haired maid, 
All garmented in robes of stainless white ; 

Whose eyes were dark and lustrous, and conveyed 
A strange wild thrill of rapture and delight 

To the strong heart that held her, thus arrayed, 
As his alone by heaven's divinest right ; 

While upward sped a white-wing'd dove to bear 

The incense that she breathed to heaven in prayer. 

GIL 

The Peri saw and wept, as well she might ; 

For her eye pierced the gloom as does the spark 
Struck from a diamond by a shaft of light ; 

And darted wildly out into the dark, 
As if it thought to catch some horrid sight. 

Like files of sheeted dead men, stiff and stark ; 
Or ward the stroke of some impending doom. 
About to flash from out the spectral gloom. 

cm. 

For now the fierce " swamp-angel" down the bay, 
So called in fiendish merriment or joke, 

Winds up the tragic honors of the day. 

By giving " Old Secesh" another *' poke" — 

Sending a northern " minister" to pay 
A " Sabbath greeting" to a southern flock : 

The joke's a good one — equal to Abe's best. 

And so the swamp-fiend flings his iron jest ! 



40 
ciy. 

Piercing the air like some demoniac cry, 
Wrung from a soul by fiery serpents kissed, 

The maddened missile leapt into the sky, 

And on its hellish errand shrieked and hissed ; 

The sentries call, "Another 'devil's eye,' 

From the ' swamp-angel,' gleaming through the mist ! 

But friendly admonition is in vain, 

The death-wing rustles on the air again ! 

CV. 

And, lo ! its victim is the fair-haired bride. 
Struck at the altar ere her vows were made : 

A deed at which the " paindest fiend" might hide 
In hell's dun smoke his scarred and blackened head, 

And summon troops of blasphemies beside. 
To damn him to the deepest depths of shade ! 

And yet a fierce fanaticism cries, 
"Another batch of just such victories !" 

CYI. 

Oh heaven ! oh hell ! enough of war that's " civil," 
Invoke what height or depth you may, or call 

On what divinity you will or devil, — 

'Tis all the same. Since Adam had his fall 

Earth hath not seen a greater curse or evil. 
And may not see, till she has summoned all 

The hidden fires of her breast within. 

To cleanse her surface, scarred by death and sin. 



41 

CVII. 

The Peri wept, or seemed such grief to show 
As seraphs do, when weeping for each other : 

Her tears came not with such o'ermastering flow 
As madly to gush out, all spent together, 

But slowly chrystalized as diamonds do ; 
As if a joy some giant grief would smother, 

And found it hard to get the mastery : — 

So stands a tear-drop in the Peri's eye. 

CYIII. 

And so it stood upon that night of shame 

And sin and desecration, not to say 
Of murder in the sight of God and man : 
*♦ Who at the priestly altar dares to slay 
A friend or foe, perdition seize his name," 

Ran the old Syriac curse, Anathema, 
Or Maranatha, when the Lord stood by 
To wield the threatened vengeance of the sky. 

CIX. 

The Peri has returned ; and stands again 

Hard by the graves of the "Old Regicides," ^o 

(Grim rebels in their day, with still the stain 
Of unwashed treason on the turf that hides 

Their branded beads,) who dared the tyrant's chain 
To sever, and his kingly neck besides ; 

And with still higher daring, dared proclaim 

That infamy like theirs, was deathless fame. 



42 

ex. 

The North Church is ablaze, A " loyal" text, 
With •' loyal" exegesis penned throughout. 

Has reached its "forty-ninthly," or betwixt 
That and its hundreth head, and still holds out 

As bravely as the spider's web, that's next 
To airy nothing spun, and wove about 

In glittering meshes for sonie fly to go : 

The thread seems endless till it parts in two ! 

CXI. 

This church's history is quite unique : 

We conned some pages of it years ago. 
When " Bleeding Kansas" first began to '' shriek" 

For Northern aid to put the "ruffians" through; 
And every church got up its little speck 

Of " border war" to preach about, or do 
As this church did— send rifles out to *' lamm 'em" 
In boxes marked, "From Old Fort Kill 'em, damn 'em !"2 » 

CXII. 

It is intensely " loyal" now. But then, 

Ye gods ! what was it? Hell-black with its treason — 
And muttered curses 'gainst " our curse and bane" — 

That "league with death," which God for some wise reason 
(So they blasphemed) allowed us to ordain, 

That He might stay his wrath a little season ; 
Then smash in fragments, or explode the whole, 
"Like bombs and rockets at Sebastopol." ^^ 



43 

CXIII. 

But I must leave its history for another ♦ 

And lighter-footed Canto. It is one 
That has some passages 'twere well to smother, 

Or touch at least quite gingerly upon ; 
I don't refer to crim. cons. ; they are rather 

A novelty just now beneath the sun, 
Especially in churches that are ** loyal," 
And, lience, high moral atmospheres enjoy all ! 

CXIV. 

The logic gravels here, I grant ; but then 
What does not follow sometimes goes before. 

And a non sequitur has often been, 

Of knock-down argument, the gist and core ; 

I've known it, when adroitly wielded, pin 
The most consummate casuist to the floor, 

Or send him sprawling like the North Church steeple. 

When it was sawed down by the Center people ! ^^ 

CXY. 

'Tis said a vain and stupid ass one day. 
Wrapped up his valiant carcass in the ski^ 

Of an old lion that had come to lay 
His bones among his ancestoi's, within 

A certain valley where the ass did stray ; 

And then began to bray with might and main : 

The simple burghers saw through his disguise, 

And pummeled the old ass till he grew wise. 



44 

CXVI. 

The fable's jEsop's, but the moral's mine, 
To lash the traitor with when he shall show 

Himself abroad in his disguise so thin ; 
And bear himself, as the same church would do, 

As if all " loyalty" pertained to him ; 

Though all the while the traitor's ears crop through 

As did the ass's, when he thought to feign 

The lion, and to shake his mighty mane ! 

CXVII. 

The world has reared its monuments of folly. 

Fools have rushed in where angels dared not tread, 

Madness has ruled the hour, as if 'twere wholly 
Bent on some swift destruction for its head ; 

Hare-brains have played their bedlam pranks as fully 
As Ajax his, or the mad Orleans maid, 

Or that wild hermit, squalid grown and scurvy. 

Who turned the world once all but topsy-turvy. 

CXYIII. 

But all the freaks of human madness shown, 
Since tlfis distempered planet had its birth, 

In point of fact, bear no comparison 
With the mad freak that now distracts the earth. 

And sets it crazy in its every zone ; 
Clamoring, in a fit of drunken mirth, 

For a wild war- waltz all the nation through, 

To end in one grand — " nigger" fandango ! 



45 

CXIX. 

Each crazy zany of the pulpit vies 

With his politico-religious neighbor, 
In summing up the " sum of villainies :" 

As if 'twere heaven's high mission thus to labor. 
And bend his utmost zany faculties ; 

While to his priestly thigh he buckles sabre, 
And stalks a -field — a terror to his foes, 
As much so as a scare-crow is to crows ! 

CXX. 

There are, 'tis said, black sublunary devils, 

Infesting every belt of earth and air ; 
Who nightly hold their mad, fantastic revels 

In bogs and fens, where ignesfatui flare. 
To lead astray each luckless wight that travels 

Across the moor, unsheltered, bleak, and bare ; 
Giving themselves as many different shapes 
As there are grimaces to grinning apes. 

CXXI. 

And that it is their chief delight to make 

Some hare-brained fool a stalking guide and teacher, 

To cram with wisdom each obdurate neck 

That props "the human face divine" or feature ; 

While many a reckless rake-hell of a rake 

Turns, at their bidding, prophet, priest or preacher, 

To lamm away at vices all his own, 

Or damn the world for reaping as he's sown ! 



46 

CXXII. 

I've known some parsons of this special stripe, 
Who, like Democritus, would flout at folly, 

And yet grow merry as a grig, and wipe 
The perspiration at each idle sally 

Of their dull wits ; that juicier than a snipe 

Seemed to themselves, although to others wholly 

Devoid of everything that's known to savor 

Of " Attic salt," which gives to wit its flavor. 

cxxni. 

And such an one the Peri saw that night. 
When, driven from the Center and the North 

By their repellant at'Tiospheres, she quite 
Forgot her heavenly errand, and went forth 

In search of some locality that might 
Afford a more congenial stay on earth ; 

And momentary-swift as thought she flew 

From these two churches, to another two. 

CXXIV. 

In front or one, or standing vis-a-vist 

Was Mammon's temple, built on what we owe. 

Or rather what we've sunk beneath the sea ; 
And in the rear, a devil of a row 

Of buildings, by the devil held in fee, 

If one may judge from what he has in tow — 

Some fifty rum-holes, all within his clutch. 

With which he stands prepared to back the church ! 



47 



CXXY. 

And underneath, as motley group of shops 
As Grubstreet clergyman could wish to see ; 

With yankee notions, gimcracks, ginger-pops, 
Sensation novels, brass bijouterie, 

Tonsorial artists — literary slops, 

And " contrabands" picked up in Tennessee 

By *' loyal" brokers, who were glad to house 'em, 

For what the State allowed — a chance to chouse 'em ! 

CXXVI. 

An architectural wag was once required 

To give the order of this church a name ; 
" All order," he replied, " must have expired 
When such a structure into being came ;" 

It looks as if to Doric it aspired 

To lay some sort of secondary claim. 

While all the orders in disorder run, 

From bastard turret to foundation stone. 

CXXVII. 

The Peri entered first the vestibule. 
Then up a flight of steps into the nave ; 

And, listening to the preacher, thought to cull 
Some flowers of rhetoric worth her while to save ; 

But what was her astonishment, when, full 
Of bile and billingsgate, she heard him rave, 

As if to rival all the sons-of-Beecher^ Sj 

In his politico-religious speeches ! 



48 



CXXYIII. 

I know this is unpopular ; I know 

'Tis damnable ; I know 'tis shedding ink 

In vain; I know we ought to feel and show 
Respect for clergymen, who are the pink 

And rosemary of proprieties below; 
I know we ought in charity to wink 

At all their foibles, whether few or many, 

Save when in politics they play the zany ; 

CXXIX. 

And then we ought to flay 'em to the bone, — 
Invoke Euterpe's lash as well as fire, 

And lay it on till every mother's son 
Shall to his pulpit instantly repair, 

And leave all '* dirty work" to those alone 
Who have no sacerdotal robes to wear; 

Nor be the first to leap upon the rostrum. 

To ventilate each vile quack-ridden nostrum ! 

CXXX. 

Nor prowl about the politician's den 

For " stolen jests from Megara," or crumbs 

Let fall from editorial tables when 

The devil sucks his dirty, inky thumbs. 

And chuckles hugely at his pious vein 

Put on for the occasion, when there comes 

A clergyman or two into his " sanctum," 

To help his villainous satanic crank turn ! 



49 

CXXXI. 

To say that these shall have the '* Attic wasps" 
Swarming about their ears with stinging tail, 

Is but historic truth the poet grasps, 
Whose inspiration is prophetical : 

Lucilius in his day applied his asps, 
When milder satire was of no avail ; 

And follies such as theirs, shall ever be 

As then — jeered in immortal comedy, 

CXXXII. 

The Peri entered, as we said, the navet 
Or body of the church, and there descried 

Self-righteousness enough to damn or save 
A hundred churches, and their knaves beside ; 

In holding forth, its parson seemed to have 
The air and mien of one who would bestride 

The world like a Colossus, could he find 

A world of dandiprats to suit his mind ! 

CXXXIII. 

He did not absolutely curse — that is, 

Infringe the decalogue — but came so near it, 

Some of his audience thought it of a piece 
With pulpit swearing, " tall" as one could bear it ; 

For he invoked the heavens to shower this 

And that curse on his foes, till they should swear it 

Was past endurance, even in a block, 

To stand of prayer another such a shock ! 



50 

CXXXIV. 

And then he prayed against a certain church, 

'^oi for it, as the Peri thought he should ; 
And in his prayer administered the birch. 

Or bastinado, till it brought the blood 
To tingle in his own veins quite as much 

As in his audience, which devoutly bowed 
As to some heavenly edict or decree. 
Whilst he denounced all Punic " loyalty." 

CXXXT. 

And left all Punic faith in heaven, to go 
Uncensured, unrebuked, in his own flock ; 

Applauding deeds of blood long sermons through, 
As if a bleeding Christ he sought to mock. 

Or " honor" with a crown of thorns anew ; 
And earth itself were on the point to rock 

And heave its broad foundations to the sky, 

As in its mediaeval agony ! 

CXXXYI. 

The Peri felt oppressed as with some weight 
Too heavy for a seraph's breast to bear, 

And half resolved to take her instant flight 
And re-ascend the crystal heights of air; 

But first she thought to look out on the night 
For some bright pharo, in a distant star. 

To guide her upward, or direct her way 

Back to the empyrean, by its ray. 



51 



CXXXVII. 

But ere she bade this sin-scarred world adieu, 
The thought possessed her, strange enough to say, 

To visit a " disloyal" church that drew 
Upon itself untold anathema ; 

Especially from clergymen, who threw 
Themselves into a rage whenever they 

Heard that the gospel, undefiled, was preached 

Within its walls, canonically breached ! 

CXXXYIII. 

And as she neared the execrated roof, 
A strange magnetic force began to play 

In her rapt veins, as when the mystic woof 
Leaps from the shuttle on its flashing way 

To interlace two hearts that stand aloof, 
Yet long to rush together and allay 

A common anguish in a common flame ; 

So leapt a transport through the Peri's frame. 

CXXXIX. 

For there she found the only guardian seraph 
That kept the earth amid its present strife 

And turmoil of fierce factions, the din whereof 
Jarred on celestial ears and nerves, as if 

Some universe were rent in fragments, sheer oflF 
Upon the confines of material life ; 

Where matter, in its elemental strife and jar. 

Gives birth to Titans, waging endless war. 



52 

CXL. 

No sooner had the keen-eyecl seraph caught 
The flashing of her wing, than forth she flew 

To greet the Peri, thinldng she had brought 
Some errand froni the skies for her to do, 

Or possibly some pledge that she had sought 
Of sister seraphs, when they bade adieu 

To this mad earth, to re-ascend the skies, 

And leave to Fate her tangled destinies. 

CXLI. 

And lo ! the Peri stands, with folded wings, 
Within the church, by seraph thither led, 

Who in her hand a golden censer swings, 
As if to scatter perfume o'er each bead 

Low bent in prayer for that sweet peace that brings 
Healing to men and nations, when they've shed 

Their blood like water in the ensanguined strife, 

And only cease to save a nation's life ! 

CXLII. 

Within the sacred desk the preacher stood, 

With pale and thoughtful face to heaven upturned, 

Whose blue veins kindled to a purple flood, 
As on his lips all eloquently burned 

A prayer for peace, upraised to Him who bowed 
The heavens and came down, and here sojourned, — 

The Prince of Peace, by Cedron's waters led, 

And dark Gethsemane, to be betrayed ! 



53 

CXLIII. 

And in his earnest supplication brought 
His bleeding country to his Saviour's feet, 

As if the shades of Olivet he sought 
To stay her ** agony and bloody sweat;" 

Imploring heaven to interpose and not 

Press home the bitter cup till drained complete 
' Oh, let it pass, if but thy will be done," 

He said, " ere yet its dregs like Marah run !" 

CXLIV. 

Low bent the seraphs in the solemn aisle 

As upward went the preacher's earnest prayer. 

That heaven might graciously vouchsafe its smile. 
Or rather cease its angry frown to wear ; 

And on the troubled waters pour the oil 
Of reconciliation near and far, — 

Spanning once more the weeping skies above 

With rainbow tokens of returning love. 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



" High on a throne of royal state, which far ^ 
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.,'* 

Satan exalted sat, with power to war 
Both on angelic hosts and on mankind; 

And on his breast he wore the thunder-scar 
Of the Almighty, which had first assigned 

Him his fixed place, in outer space and time, 

Where Milton revels in the " dread sublime." ' 

II. 

His grim Satanic majesty looked thin, 

And pale, and haggard, with the cares of state 

So much so, that his old sardonic grin 
Of satisfaction, had worn off of late, 

And left him somewhat *■ down about the chin," 
To use a phrase of somewhat doubtful date ; 

Though on his brow he bore defiance still, 

And covert guile, foreboding darkest ill. 



56 

HI. 

He'd lately held a council of his peers, 

Off on the very confines of dun air, 
In order to discuss some state affairs. 

Relating mostly to our mundane sphere ; 
Where he had set the world so by the ears, 

That everything was topsy-turvy here, — 
Fools madly rushing in, where angels would 
Have stood aghast, at their own hardihood. 

IV. 

The object of this council was, I'm told. 

Upon the part of his Satanic highness, 
To wield his iron sceptre with ten fold 

The guile and craft, and subtilty and slyness, 
That he resorted to, when he cajoled 

The mother of mankind, in all her shyness 
And maidenly reserve, by that fell apple 
That damned the race, and stuck in Adam's thrapple !- 



He had before him some terrestrial maps, 
And hydrographic charts, which he inspected 

As if he sought to guard against mishaps. 
In some grand enterprise by him directed ; 

And summoned Flamsteed's ghost by sundry raps, 
And old Mercator's, where they least expected ^ 

To find themselves, when first they racked their brains 

About reducing spheroids down to planes. 



57 



VI. 



And asked of them to point out such a place 
As Ethiopia, if there really was one : 

That unknown region, or grand myth in space, 
Where mighty rivers 'gainst all natural laws riiU ; 

With neither mouth nor source that one can trace, 
Though a late writer thinks it safe, because one 

Runs up hill, to predicate its source. 

Whence lost Eurydice was snatched by force. * 

VII. 

*' I think," says Satan, pondering the matter, 

With some perplexity, in his own mind, 
" This region's raised a devil of a clatter. 

For one so little known among mankind ; 
Or little cared for, save as food to scatter 
Mere fire-brands abroad, by such as find 
Their occupation, lilie Othello's, gone, 
When discord and dissention they have none. 

VIII. 

*' I mean the long-eared Puritanic school, 

Who make Procrustean beds for men to lie on, * 

And mete out mercy by the golden rule 

That * you shall think as they do, or rely on 

Hell as a fixed fact ;' and that as full 
As they can cram it, with an evil eye on 

All who do not swallow their Satanic dogmas. 

Or wallow in their intellectual quagmires I 



58 

IX. 

'I know not what they think," continued Satan, 
" About my empire and its maddened revels, 
But, judging from the usual themes they prate on, 

Theirs is a grand Miltonic school of devils 
Ready to do their bidding, or await on 

Their Puritanic presence just serve hell's 
Plan and purpose, when it stands in need 
Of a politico-religious creed ! 

X. 

' And know you all," says Satan to his peers, 

" That such a creed is hell's most potent lever 
To stir an earthquake from its sleep of years ; 

I mean a moral one, that comes whenever 
The atmosphere is charged with taunts and jeers 

To that mad pitch of frenzy that would sever 
The holiest ties of kindred, country, home, 
For party agitation, froth, and spume. 

XI. 

' I think the Fates have had this tangled skein. 

Or Ethiopian snarl, too long already 
Upon their distaffs; and I'll cut in twain 

Its Gordian meshes, if Asmodeus," said he, 
"Will do my bidding— take my subterrene, 

Or night-express train, to that * land of steady 
Habits,' where the doctors of divinity 
Hang their strict morals on their strict Latinity ! 



59 

XII. 

"This land, I'm told, is set down on the maps 

As bordering on that modern Dahomy 
Called Massachusetts, tlie best place, perhaps, 

To learn what doctors of divinity say o'me ; 
For there they deal in spiritual raps 

From such ' damn'd ghosts' as seek to go astray o'me, 
And turn the heads of her literati, 
From little u, (of course,) to thumping great I! 

XIII. 

And here the Devil summoned his own shade, 
The imp Asmodeus, to the double task ^ 

Of getting up a Boozoo masquerade 
And a grand Ethiopian hal-au-masque, 

To show the mighty race off, which had made 
The earth to shake and shiver like an asp, 

Or reel as if some comet's tail had struck it 

'Twixt wind and weather, just to kick its bucket ! 

XIV^ 

The shadow came, a low, squat, ugly figure. 
That looked as if it might have been a shade 

Fresh from the pit of the old arch-intriguer. 
Whose substance had this grisly shadow made; 

One that like Nachash Canaan, or the *' nigger," 
Showed that knee-bending was his supple trade; — ' 

In fact, his genuflections were so numerous. 

The Devil thought his shadow had grown humorous. 



60 

XV. 

And thus accosted it, in his blunt way : 
" Asmodeus, you're a trump ! as I can swear 
Upon a stack of Talmuds, if need be ; 

With Machiavelian craft enough to share 
The honors of the empire I survey 

And call my own, by right established clear ; 
And I've a mission worth your while to grace 
With all your subtile cunning and grimace. 

XVI. 

' A certain clerical consociation, 

Which has the ' negro largely on the brain,' 
Would run a muck, it seems, with all creation, 

Or with my empire, which is much the same ; 
And hence propose their schemes of mis'genation 

To mitigate the curse pronounced on Cain ; 
Or rather, furnish octoroons free gratis, 
Until a sated North cries out, "jam satis !" 

XVII. 

' This scheme, I think, would suit a " loyal" Turk, 
Not too fastidious on the point of color. 

If he would only set himself to work 

To damn his soul, and save an honest dollar ; 

For harems are expensive, and the dirk 

Of dark-eyed Georgian maids is apt to follow 

The course of their quick blood, if not desire, 

When passion sets their liquid veins on fire. 



61 

XVIII. 

' Now what I seek, Asmodeus," said the Devil 

With all the suaviter in modo he 
Apparently could summon to be civil 

To liis own shadow — " is pure deviltry : — 
The Simon pure, that savors dark of evil, 

Yet has a smack of outward piety ; 
As when the Puritanic clergy take 
My settled plans in hand for conscience sake, 

XIX. 

' And put them through with diabolic unction ; 

As they have done on more than one occasion 
When integrating my satanic function, 

Or differential of a soul's equation ; 
Showing a sort of mathematic gumption 

At working out my problems of damnation, 
In which I purposely extract one sin 
As a mere springe to get their best foot in ! 

XX. 

" What devil would not grin a ghastly smile, 
To see them catch at this stale trick of mine, 

As if it were my province to beguile 

With craft transparent, luminous and thin ; 

And they were gulls to be ' winged in' the while, 
By springes to catch woodcock — plated sin : — 

In fact, whenever sin I chance to plate, 

They snap like very turtles at my bait ! 



62 



XXI. 



'* I perched the negro lately on the cross, 

With this inscription — 'in hoc signo vinces;' 

And though the trick was vile as it was gross, 
They caught at it as urchins catch at quinces, 

When they perceive their flavor and their gloss ; 
And though their appetite a little winces 

At the first taste, they finally agree 

The fruit is luscious — hanging on a tree ! 

XXII. 

' So with my * Afric martyr' hanging high, 
As hangs the ' goose' in highfalutin' strain, ^ 

No sooner does he catch a parson's eye 

Than, lo ! the rocks again are rent in twain. 

And shattered is the cross of Calvary; 
Up goes t\)e '.ebon idol' for the slain 

Messiah, and a feticism vile 

Ringsjhrough the lofty arch and vaulted aisle. 

XXIII. 

' All household gods are stricken down at once, 
Churches abandoned, or abandon grown ; 

Zeal, maddened into rage, obscures and blunts 
The moral sense, till moral sense there's none ; 

Wisdom is badgered in her house ; an ounce 
Of sheerest folly weighs her down a ton ; 

And though her price is far above all rubies, 

This ' Afric nonsense' is the milk of boobies ! ^ 



63 

XXIV. 

" Now the high mission I would have you grace," 

Continued Satan to his grisly shade, 
" Is to erect this Idol in the place 
Of every martyr-hero that has bled 
On cross or rack, to gratify caprice 

Or whim or malice, since the world was made. 
Down with the dying Christ upon the tree ! 
Up with my fetisch gods in ebony !" 

XXV. 

And Satan waved his iron scepter high 
Above the smoke of hell. A gesture wide 

It seemed, as when two clouds obscure the sky 
From some high mountain cone, on either side 

Outstretching their huge length as far as eye 
Can reach, or objects be descried : 

A. mighty cloud-capp'd Teneriffe he stood. 

In grand, majestic, awful attitude ! 

XXVI. 

And bade Asmodeus to the earth repair 
Upon his mission, without further stay 

For such instructions as he needed there ; 
And though it was a somewhat dubious way, 

And led through fields obscure of nether air, 
There was no chance for him to go astray ; 

For one continuous stream of horror poured 

Itself along, from earth to hell abhorred. ' 



64 

XXYII. 

Asmodeus heard, and leapt upon the train 

Of fire-wing'd cars, that 'neath the crusted earth 

Ply with infernal steam, which to maintain 
Gives mad volcanoes, like Vesuvius, birth ; 

When they essay their pent up fires in vain 
To hold, and ever and anon belch forth 

A stream of lava, which would seem to be 

The slag of hell — its dross and scoriae. 

XXYIII. 

It was a mad vehicular affair. 

The swift-sure that he took, and seemed to be 
Impelled by fiery demons through the air. 

Whenever it emerged to light of day 
From out the depths of subterrene despair. 

Through deep volcanic fissures in the sea; 
And what was strange, it did not seem to fly. 
But rather to pitch headlong through the sky. 

XXIX. 

I know not where he first emerged to light, 
(I mean Asmodeus on his fiery car,) 

But one thing's certain, it was dead o'night 
When he first flashed — a meteoric star — 

Upon Yale's clever, astronomic sight ; 
Bringing her grand Herschelian to bear 

Upon his train, that flashed along the sky 

Like gleams of hate shot fi-om a devil's eye ! 



65 



XXX. 

Again this famous institution notes, 

On her celestial chart, a cosmic wonder ; 

And in her migiity erudition quotes 
A line or two (and tliat without a blunder) 

From the great Almagest, to prove that motes, 
Or rather certain molecules, forced asunder 

By any sudden jerk, will give out light 

Much like the strange phenomenon that night. 

XXXI. 

And in her journal of transcendent science, 
Devoted to all sorts of tongues and knowledges. 

Shows how a mad, erratic world may fly hence, 
By not observing the fixed laws of all ages ; 

Or not depending, as its chief reliance 
For mental pabulum, on certain colleges. 

Where doctors of divinity and laws, 

Confound all learning to explain all cause. 

XXXII. 

Asmodeus landed on the college green 

Just as some students would the devil raise, 

And found two grave professors on the keen 
Lookout for deviltry, in all its ways ; 

Who, at the sight of tail his legs between. 
Imagined him a "Soph." upon a "haze," 

And seized him by the collar, to assure him 

That of his deviltry they soon would cure him ! 



66 



XXXIII. 

Asmodeus, who had just arrived from li7?ibo, 
With a carte blanche to travel where he pleased, 

From ice-bound Hecla down to burning Chimbo, 
Was somewhat nonplussed at thus being seized ; 

And, with defiant air and arms akimbo, 
Demanded instantly to be released : — 
" Unhand me, sirs ! or you'll provoke a tussle. 

In which I'll travel squarely on my muscle !" 

XXXIV. 

" His insolence is 'swilled,' I do declare," 

Said one professor gravely to the other ; 
" I never heard the like from thief or liar, 

And will not brook it for an instant further, 
The pugilistic rascal ! Look you here, 

You nase curmudgeon of a base-born mother ! 
D'you think. we'll take you're insolence thus crammed?' 
'You will,'' replied Asmodeus, "when you're damned.' 

XXXV. 

This was too much for any senior " prof.," 

Especially of Yale, to take, or stand ; 
And bidding him peremptorily to doflf 

Both tile and tail, they took his case in hand. 
Or thought to do so, when he sidled off 

As if his legs were not at his command ; 
And, with a sudden dash to, like a shutter, 
Sent both professors sprawling in the gutter. 



67 

XXXVI. 

* I beg your pardon, senior wranglers," said he, 
" 'Twas on my part an accidental stumble ; 

Your legs or mine must have become unsteady, 
To get mixed up in such an awkward tumble ; 

But accidents MJi7/ happen when you're heady, 
At which, for one, I never care to grumble : 

I'm at your service, sirs, if you'll be civil, 

And not with me attempt to play the devil. 

XXXVII. 

•I'm not, as you first supposed, a student, 
But an ambassador, with full credentials, 

From his consummate majesty and prudent. 

Who stands the most potential 'mong potentials. 

And, 'mong true gentlemen, the only true gent.; 
If you consider all the grand essentials 

To true gentility, which are to make 

The world an ass to bear you on its back ! 

XXXVIII. 

"Now my most high, puissant, noble master, 

Who sends me here with my credentials greeting, 

Has all of these ; and, what is more, lives faster 
Than any roue you might chance to meet in 

Paris, were you to spend your last piaster 

In search of one the most frequented street in ; 

And yet he lives no faster than he should. 

With his estates of such vast amplitude, 



68 

XXXIX. 

"And such diversity of range. For he 

Has secret leagues with almost every nation. 

By which they grant him their domains in fee, 
For nothing in return but a * dotation,' 

Or eleemosynary gift — to be 

Used by himself and them in such rotation, 

That every time the wheel of fortune turns, 

He takes the * plenty/ they the empty * horns.' 

XL. 

'* I instance these particulars that you. 

Who teach Columbia's young ideas to shoot, 

May duly pay all proper homage to 

My master, whose grand scheme I have on foot ; 

Which is, to put this * blasted' country through 
A * course of sprouts,' beginning at the root, 

And thereon grafting, in their proper place, 

My * Afric scions' to improve her race." 

XLI. 

** Sir," interrupted one professor here, 
With an apologetic ke??i ! or two, 
As if his throat from some stray frog he'd clear, 

"We little thought you were a 'plenipo.' 
From the great Afric Mongul, as you are. 

And would apologize for this slight show 
Of disrespect. We took you for another. 
And not an anthropophagus or brother!" 



69 

XLII. 

Asmodeus answered : " 'Tis not your apology, 
So amply offered, that I care to take ; 

What I would rather have, is your theology 
Chained with my * Afric martyr' to the stake ; 

So that my master's science, anthropology. 
May give religion such another thwack 

As she once got in France, when hell let loose 

The human passions, to their last mad sluice ! 

XLIII. 

* There I enthroned pure reason in such shape 
That the impure embraced her at first sight. 

And e'en the virtuous stood with mouth agape, 
And eyed my • strumpet goddess' with delight ; — 

A nymph du pave that I chanced to scrape 
Up in a faubourg, ou demeure V elite ; 

And made d^fete in Paris to parade her, 

As nude as Nature's cunning hand had made her ! 

XLIV. 

' This was my modus operandi then. 

To run the world upon the shoals of folly — 
A stranded bark to ne'er set sail again ; 

But some rude tars aboard, more wise than jolly, 
Veered her to windward and thus spoiled my plan ; 

But now the seas are rough, the banks are shoaly, 
And the mad bark is rushing down the gale. 
As if the devil were in every sail. 
5 



70 



XLY. 

' Before her are Oharybdis and wild Scylla ; 

On either hand, those fierce Celsenos dire, 
Whose syren music lulls the angry billow, 

Yet more enrages the deep smouldering fire 
Her hulks beneath ; behind, a cloudy pillar, 

Girt with red lightnings like a funeral pyre ; 
While the mad breakers upward leap, and fling 
Their mane aside, as at her throat they spring. 

XLVI. 

' 'Tis a wild phlegethon, or hell of waters, 

In which she struggles ; and around her yawns 

Destruction, like the Belides, or daughters 
Of old Danaus, when the dull day dawns ; 

Hope takes her flight, and safety idly loiters 
Like a whipt school-boy, by the wayside lawns, 

Unheeding his straight path ; while the rude sea 

Chafes like a tiger when he snuffs his prey. 

XLVII. 

"There's but one remedy for all this broil, 
And elemental strife," continued he ; 

" 'Tis not to pour your theologic oil 
Upon the troubled waters of this sea ; 

But rather ventilate your pulpit bile. 
And Puritanic rancor, till you free 

The * nigger,' and let loose your full-mouthed pack 

Of ' Zion's bloodhounds' on the white man's track ! 



71 

XLYIII. 

* Your grand artistic idea of this race, 

May then be chiseled by some future Phidias, 

Whose hand shall bring out their historic face, 
In all its glory, by his arts lapideous ; 

Making the breathing marble glow apace 
With future Dinahs, for the most fastidious ; 

Or future Sambos, to adorn some niche 

Transcendently above the white man's reach !" ^^ 

XLIX. 

Here both professors interrupt Asmodeus, 

As if a simultaneous tongue they wagged : 
" We beg your pardon, sir, but when Herodias 
Got John the Baptist's head securely bagged, 

'Twas not so much the act that made her odious. 
As that her daughter into it she dragged ; 

And though the negro is indeed our 'brother,' 

He's not our sister, nor our brother's mother, ^ ^ 

L. 

" Nor our great aunt, nor yet a dozen score 
Of nieces we might name, or second cousins ; 

Nor our intended second wife, what's more, 

Nor children by her, though they come by dozens 

And to engender strife and civil war 

That we may mis'genate with ' colored pussons,' 

Would damn us all effectually the same, 

As was Herodias by her daughter's shame." 



72 

LI. 

'You reason like the schoolmen of most colleges," 
Replied Asmodeus, " and I do not wonder 

You sometimes make a balk in your theologies 
As crude in fact as this historic blunder : 

'Twas not Herodias (begging your apologies) 
Who brought herself the ban so vilely under ; 

But rather Herod, surnamed Antipas, 

Who for Salome made himself an ass ! 

LII. 

* Now I am posted in the Pentateuch, 

The Law, the Prophets, Esther, Ezra, Ruth^ 
Job and the Canticles, and sometimes look 

Into the Proverbs for a musty truth ; 
And when I see your college Rabbis choke 

At the Mosaic teachings, as if loth 
To swallow what is said of Nachash-Canaan, 
I know the devil's got you well in trainin.' 

LIII. 

* 'Tis his first lesson in Satanic drill 

To knock the sand from underneath some Babel, 
Or tongue-confounding principle, until 

You come to treat it as an idle fable, 
Though truth it be that Sinai thunders still ; 

And toppling down your faith as fast as able, 
He builds upon its ruins, dark and high, 
His massive piles of Infidelity. 



73 

LIV. 

'These frown already like some giant ghauts 
Above your schools of dead divinity, ^ ^ 

Darkening the outline of your very thoughts 
With atheistic shadows gathering nigh ; 

While theologic mushrooms of all sorts 

Spontaneous spring beneath your very eye, — 

The natural upgrowth of the soil you till, 

With your hypostasis and ' dogged will.' 

LV. 

' You're complimentary, in your way, sir, very ;" 
"Who's not," replied Asmodeus, "is not civil ;" 

'And your * hypostasis' suggests a query :" 
" Pray what is that V " The substance of the devil. 

' Ah, you're facetious — seem in fact quite merry — 
As you essay to extirpate all evil ; 

But strike the devil out of your ontology, 

And where the devil would be your theology ?" 

LVI. 

' Odi jprofanum vulgus" they retort ; 

" Et arceo,'" is Asmodeus' prompt reply ; 
' The devil and Dr. Parr ! what don't he quote ?" * 

"Your ' concios-ad-clerunC done up dry; 
Though one might do so as a last resort, 

If not afflicted with a ' critic's eye;' 
As few, if any, are inclined to be, 
Who listen to your prosy, dull D. D." 



74 



LYII. 

This was the " most unkindesl cut of all ;" 

Asmodeus felt 'twas rude — nay, downright rough ; 

But then he'd got to play a certain role, 
In which to swagger, put on airs, and bluff, 

Was more essential far than to cajole, 
Or even get himself into a huff ; 

And so he took the bull square by the horns. 

And trod thus sharply the professors' corns. 

LVIII. 

* I come, as I informed you, from my master. 
The potentate you di*ead, and yet most serve. 

By turning out your vile politicaster. 

To starve the soul and the mad passions nerve, 

Instead of the old-fashioned village pastor, 

Who from his Christian course would never swerve ; 

But pressed towards Zion with his eager flock. 

Content to bear his shepherd's staff and crook. 

LIX. 

' In this you've served the devil as you ought, 
And trod his wily paths with proper head, 

Shod with the preparation you have sought 
In hell's politico-religious creed, — 

The potent lever with which 7ie has brought 
Your country to uprise, and madly shed 

Her blood like water from hot Geysers spent, 

To introduce his ' Afric element'." 



75 

LX. 

' 'Tis a vile slander by the devil coined," 
They both at once indignantly reply ; 
' If so," Asmodeus instantly rejoined, 

"How happens it that you incessantly 
Harp on the * nigger,' as if you could find 

No loftier strain to touch your heartstrings by ; 
Not even Homer's verse — grown stale the while — 
Your * blind old man of Scio's rocky isle V 

LXI. 

' And what is more, how happens it that you, 

Through all your many classic shades and walks, 

Have kept, and still keep, constantly in view 
The weather-guage of party weather-cocks ; 

And from their rabid teachings take your cue, 
No matter how the firm foundation rocks, 

Of church and state, or what the maddened cry 

For right or wrong, when men dare do or die ? 

LXII. 

* Call it a * slander by the devil coined !' 

Out on your paltry Puritanic shams ! 
I find you to my Afric idols joined. 

And know your faith— how far of any qualms 
Of conscience you have had of any kind, 

In all your mighty range of 'whims' and 'whams; 
From the great 'Moon Hoax,' to the incessant jar ^'^ 
'Bout human rights in — Borrioboolagha ! 



. 76 

LXIII 

' And now when I demand that you shall stare 

The logic of events full in their face, 
And meet the questions openly and square 

That appertain to my generic race, 
You put on airs and look as if you were 

An unborn babe to all this bloody farce ; 
And raise your hands, as 'twere in holy horror. 
At mis'genatioD, which must come to-morrow ! ^ ^ 

LXIV. 

' How long is't since you held your Nort.h Church meeting. 
And afterwards your grand Alumni dinner, 

To send to Kansas your new Bible greeting, 
And shoot the gospel into every sinner ? 

Your anti-slavery Bible, with one sheet in, 
Leaded to kill, or rather prove the winner 

Of soul and body both at the same time. 

Should christian clergymen but ' cock and prime V 

LXY. 

' And who so fierce at doing this as they ? 

Not old Suwarroif, with his Calmucks drilling 
Before the walls of Ismail, in his day ; 

Who practiced in the ' noble art of killing* 
As a mere pastime to while time away ; 

And valued less a human life than shilling : 
It being always past his comprehension 
To save a life, except to save a pension. 



77 

LXYI. 

* And yet this Russian could not hold a candle 

To Zion's thirstier bloodhounds of your day, 
Though Providence designed that he should handle 

An army quite as cleverly as they ; 
If not to keep himself as free from scandal, 

When women chanced to come within his way ; * ' 
For old Suwarroff to the sex was civil. 
Although he cared for neither flesh nor devil. 

LXYII. 

* I like consistency. It is a jewel 

That more becomes a man than does discretion 
A fair woman, which carries her through ill 

And good report, whate'er their false impression ; 
Oft snatching honor from a grasp more cruel 

And splenetic than death, as its possession ; 
And yet as often, in sad sooth to say. 
Casting the pearl in some mad freak away. 

LXVIII. 

' I like consistency in man or devil ; 

It is a jewel that doth appertain 
To a swine's snout, beyond all doubt or cavil, 

( Vide the Proverbs, whence the met'phor's ta'en,) 
A fortiori does't pertain to civil 

Rank and distinction, which to rightly gain, 
Demands the even tenor of one's way, 
No matter what the devil is to pay ! 



78 

LXIX. 

" But when I see your college Esaus sell 

Their classic birthright for a mess of pottage 

Brewed by that abolition Jezebel, 
Who bids defiance to no matter what age, 

And glories in her shame, the hag of hell; 
I wonder not the world is in its dotage. 

Or that its brazen, brainless asses share 

Alone its honors, as they do its care." 

LXX. 

And here Asmodeus made an end of speaking ; 

'Twas not his trade, he said, " sic finis fandi;" 
He hated those whose tongues were always creaking 

With rusty maxims, more intent to bandy 
A truth for error's sake than to be seeking 

Truth for her own : a trick they had as handy 
As any craft the devil could well show, 
With all his nameless handicraft below. 

LXXI. 

With this the grisly shadow disappeared, 
Or rather vanished from material sight, 

Leaving the grave professors, who still peered 
Into the gloom of that ghost-ridden night ; 

While everything about them seemed so weird 
And goblin-shaped, it set tliem in afii'ight, 

And turned their capillaceous tufts as gray 

As any rat's that had outlived his day. 



79 

LXXII. 

Perhaps you've seen, far out upon the waters, 
Some white gulls skimming o'er the evening sea ; 

Just as the Nereids — Neptune's fair-haired daughters, ^ '^ 
With their sweet Triton-shells, came merrily 

Up from their ocean beds, witli neither garters, 
Nor cinctured robe, nor belt, nor kirtle free ; 

As if their ' angry god' they sought to please. 

With new-born graces, laughter, mirth and ease. 

LXXIII. 

' If you have seen them, you have marked their flight — 
I mean the gulls, not Nereids — and have noted 

How close they kept the finny tribes in sight. 
As seemingly on some old fish they doted ; 

And how they darted from their dizzy height. 
Or some steep crag that o'er the water jutted, 

And, like an arrow, shot beneath the wave, 

As if they sought some finny life to save ! 

LXXIV. 

If you have noted this, you've noted further; 

The swift up-flying of the two together — 
The bird and fish — as close as any brother; 

Apparently to seek some distant heather, 
Where they might have a love-feast, one with t'other. 

And be both sheltered from the wind and weather j 
And noting this, you've no doubt wondered why 
The finny tribes should ever seek to fly. 



80 

LXXV. 

And you, no doubt, have drawn from tbis a moral, 

Applied as well to men as little fishes ; 
And have inferred, that, though the world was /or all, 

All were not made to dine from golden dishes ; 
That He, wlio gemmed ihe sea with beds of coral, — 

Enamelled earth and sky, and raised man's wishes 
And aspirations to the heavens high, — 
Knew no such law as base Equality ! 

LXXYI. 

Equality Is death, and Death a leveler, 

Or hell-born radical of the worst type ; 
Who wars 'gainst all distinctions, a grand reveler 

In blood and carnage, when the world is ripe 
As now for slaughter ; or when priests bedevil her 

With their theologies, and cry " Let slip 
The dogs of war," that they may hold the purse, 
The sword, the mitre, and the blunderbuss ! 

LXXVII. 

Equality is death, and Death a jester. 

Who flings his fatal gibes as well as darts. 

And mocks at all distinctions, as at best a 
Sheer delusion that some jest imparts ; 

Heeding no more the blasts of a Nor'wester 

Through his stark ribs, than Zephyrus when he starts 

Up from his languid couch, with humid eyes, 

And hastes away where bright-eyed Flora lies. 



81 

LXXVIII. 

Equality is death, and Death a preacher, 
" Fierce as ten funes — terrible as hell ;" 
Quite as " sensational," in fact, as Beecher, 

If not as orthodox and radical; 
Fearless to be o'ermatched by any teacher, 

However Christless he, or infidel ; 
Though preaching, it may be, for "greenback" salary. 
Piled up by knaves, to reach from nave to gallery ! 

LXXIX. 

Equality is death, and Death a foe 

To all diversity that life outspeaks 
In manifold expressiveness, below ; 

In war's rude shock, his fiery dart he breaks, 
And on his pale horse hurries to and fro. 

As when some mighty pestilence he shakes ; 
Warring with embryon atoms as they spring. 
Lithe and light-armed, against his shadowy wing ! 

LXXX. 

Diversity is life, and Life is light. 

Though shut from orb in Orphiucus' train, 

Or feeblest taper that outburns the night ; 
The greater and the lesser, are but one ; — 

Their inequality is God's own right 

To fix, as suits his purpose and his plan : 

So with the talents he dispenses here, 

Some have, some have not, yet all have their share. 



82 

LXXXI. 

Diversity is life, and Life was given, 
As the all-bounteous gift of God to man ; 

It now uplifts the clod from earth to heaven. 
And not returns to vivify again ; 

By its cherubic shaft the cloud is riven, 

Down whose bright clifts descends the golden rain— 

The shower of life and light, from heaven above. 

The fount ineffable, and source of love. 

LXXXII. 

Diversity is life, and Life a stream, 

Adown whose rapid current ever glide 
Thought-freighted barks, with mystic oars that gleam 

In the soul's star-shine ; and whose flashings chide 
The hasty-footed hours that seem a dream — 

A dream that ever flits itself beside ; 
Though here and there a golden oar you see, 
Dipped by the hand of pale Mnemosyne ! 

LXXXIII. 

Diversity is life, and Life an ocean 

Fed by a thousand streams, as in the sea ; 

Some great, some small, some swifter in their motion ; 
Some slower-paced, and some impetuously 

O'erleaping barriers ; as if they'd a notion 

That their tremendous volumes would outweigh 

All others in their course, could they but breast 

The topmost wave, and shake its mighty crest ! 



83 
Lxxxiy. 

Asmodeus " vamosed," as we meant to say ; 

But left behind him such a smell, or savor, 
Or complex fragrance — call it what you may — 

(Hot pitch and lavender would give the flavor, 
Combined with sulphur in a certain way — ) 

It seemed like " flesh and devil," finding favor 
With Puritanic clergy, in these days, 
Who deal in party shibboleths, not grace ! 

LXXXV. 

The grave professors looked a little " blue — " 

The color is historic — at his flight ; 
Or rather, looked as men do who've crept through 

Some several " knot-holes," to get out of sight ; 
Just what he said, they neither of them knew, 

For hearing is a sense made blunt by fright ; 
But then their ears were flushed, and burned and tingled, 
As if they'd been by some sharp weapon swingled 

LXXXVI. 

But I must leave my " grave professors" here, 
And let the Muse her epic march still hold. 

Upon the one straight theme — Asmodeus rare : 
The shadowy imp that represent the " Old," 

Or "Ancient Harry," on this mundane sphere, 

In all the craft with which earth's fools are fooled ; 

Especially the " shaven and the shorn," 

Fools to the pulpit, and the " manner," born ! 



84 

LXXXYII. 

As swift as thought when idly it takes wing 
For more discursive flight, Asmodeus flew, 

And instantly " turned up" — a dapperling. 

Or low squat dwarf, with face of ghostly hue — 

Within a parson's bed-room. How the thing 
Was done, that is to say, how he got through 

Some several key-holes, I must not unravel, 

Since theologic science craves the marvel. 

LXXXVIII. 

I'll venture no hypothesis, or doubt, 

Or rationale, therefore, of the wonder ; 
I only know the devil had found out 

A way to get through, without slip or blunder ; 
And never ventures to obtrude his snout 

A key-hole through, or lattice window under, 
Without first knowing that the "coast is clear," 
Or that his presence is demanded there. 

LXXXIX. 

And so he entered. On a couch there lay 

A reverend preacher, of some three-score years 

And ten, or thereabouts, (a year or day 
Is not material, save when one's hairs 

By some mishap turn prematurely gray,) 

Whose frame and mind both seemed, by mutual cares, 

To have grown old together, or to be 

In their last stages of senility. 



85 
xc. 

But these deceived; at least, to casual sight, 
Or observation, as the sleeper seemed 

Half conscious of the presence of the sprite 
That in his ear poured solace as he dreamed ; 

And roused his latent faculties that night 
To such a pitch of ecstacy, he deemed 

The past secure, and ample laurels twined 

For his own brow, in future jousts of mind! ^^ 

XCI. 

In other words, the devil had his ear, 
And tickled it sublimely with a straw ; 

Or such transcendent fooleries as are 

Tricked out, in wisdom's garb, like purple daw ; 

Until the dreamer dreamed he had no peer 
In ethics, morals, metaphysics, law, 

Or the " humanities," which were his boast, 

As virtue is of her whose virtue's lost. 

XCII. 

Yet, of the sweet " humanities," he'd none. 

Not e'en their semblance ; which is all the more 

Remarkable indeed, since he was one, 

Who, once upon a time, " bred sic a splore" 

About a certain youth, or stripling son, 

Who slipped his mother's apron strings before 

He should have done, and broke a lady's heart, 

By logic arrows, not by Cupid's dart ! 
6 



86 

xcin. 

The case was one that got into the books, 
Or rather one on which some books were made, 

That caused a flutter 'mong the ancient rooks 
Of Yale, beneath whose shades the scene was laid 

It also got among the pastry-cooks, 

And sundry dames, who wagged a knowing head, 

As if they thought the subject quite too tame. 

When such a youth inspired *' Platonic flame." ^^ 

XCIV. 

' I'll not repeat the story of her wrongs, 

(I mean the maiden's, blooming six-and-thirty,) 

For Beecher's sister once took up the tongs, 
Or red-hot poker, at the trick so dirty, 

And laid it on the youth, with added thongs ; 
In other words, she gave the stripling " putty," 

For talking so divinely to a lady. 

And never, to her notion, getting ready ! 

XCV. 

Vide Miss Beecher's book, entitled " Truth 
Stranger than Fiction," which is always strange ; 

Especially when old maids write of youth, 
To gratify tracasserie, or revenge ; 

And dub it "fiction," though it have, forsooth, 
Nor plot, nor moral, nor a single change 

Of incident or scene, to " point a tale ; — " 

Just where old maids proverbially fail ! 



87 

XCYI. 

I crave my "ancient dames" their gentle pardon ; 
**Lone birds of Araby" are still my pets, 
If not the Muse's, which should not be hard on 

The "Vestal Order," with its chaste videttes, 
Or flying sentinels, to guard her guerdon, — 

The boon a lady craves, yet never gets ; 
I mean the love that burns without ignition, 
And saves a soul, though lost in sweet perdition ! 

XCVII. 

But, as I said, the devil had his ear, 
And on its tympanum, as on a drum, 

Still played his tattoo ; grinning with an air 
Of self-complacency that had become 

A dozen Nesselrodes in one aflfair. 

With all their heads together on one " hum.;'" 

A grin, in fact, peculiar to the devil. 

When clerical affairs o'erride the civil. 

XCVIII. 

To wit : a grin that grew a ghastly smile. 
Then a sardonic smirk — that seemed to say, 

• I've got you in my clutches with your bile, 
And on that master humor mean to play, 

With all my craft and subtlety and guile. 
Till far and wide its ruin I survey : 

A humor too intense and fierce to sate, 

Like hell-born Hecate's immortal hate," 



88 



XOIX. 

' The liver is the lazaret of bile," 

Said Byron once, in a too bilious state, 

When all the critics of the sea-girt isle 
Denounced his muse as wholly reprobate, 

And held him up as doubly-damned and vile ; 
Whilst he retorted with such scorn and hate, 

And dealt about him such poetic fire. 

It scathed the very nations, in its ire ! 

0. 

But had he known the Puritanic liver, 
Or lazar-house of our New England bile, 

His daring hand had snatched Apollo's quiver, 
And plucked the Python shaft to wing the while ; 

And he had proved as mighty to deliver 
From mental peccancy as to revile ; 

While prouder games than Pythian had been sung, 

In honor of his deeds, the world among. 

01. 

But Byron lived too early, or else died 
Before his " opportunity," which may 

Account for his punctilio when denied 
A place among the poets of his day ; 

For genius, to no proper theme allied, 

Disdains to soar, though honor point the way, 

And dazzling halos cluster round the sun, 

As types and symbols of what may be won ! 



89 

CII. 

Had he but lived, he had expressed no want 

For hero to his mad heroic story ; 
Especially, if in the fields of cant 

His path had lain, instead of fields of glory ; 
Our parson of the " high-church-militant," 

With musty whimwhams and an aspect hoary, 
Had furnished him the very theme he wanted 
For special canto, in which cant is canted ! 

cm. 

And then, I fancy, he had bravely twined 
About the parson's brow some special bays, 

Such as Bob Southey happened once to find 
About his own — the shrimp of all his race; 

Or "poets of the Lake," who thought to bind 
All laurels to their brows, by special grace ; 

But Byron dished them up, with seasoning high, 

As " four and twenty blackbirds in a pie ;" 

CIV. 

And sat them daintily before the king, 

Whose praises they had warbled in their nest. 

As well as when they ventured to take wing. 
And did, as they supposed, their " level best ;" 

The satire was complete without its stmg, 
And yet it rankled in poor Southey's breast 

So keenly, that he damned the very name 

Of " Lake" thereafter, with his own damyCd fame ! 



90 

cv. 

But I digress. The devil, and not Byron, 
Now had the parson's ear, and on it played 

As if his tympanum were made of iron, 

And, through it, conscience was to be essayed : 

A thing the devil always keeps an eye on 
As " contraband" in parsons, as in trade ; 

And as he played his tattoo, on his face 

The grin he wore, grew to a grim grimace. 

CYI. 

In other words, the devil "grinned sardonically," 
(The phrase is Milton's, and 'tis very clear 

The Epic Builder used it not ironically, 
But rather in a sense he deemed severe 

And rigidly exact, though still euphonically,) 
Or grinned as if he'd got the very ear 

He wanted, of all others in the nation, 

For special purposes of titillation ! 

CVII. 

And on it played, as I have said before, 
Or tried to say a dozen times, I think. 

And every time my muse has stumbled o'er 
A metaphor or two, and broke a link 

In the great epic chain I had in store ; 
Or thought to have, by working on the brink. 

Or perilous edge, of narrative, to show 

What daring heights one's muse may venture to. 



91 

CYIII. 

But now the devil had the parson's ear ; 

Still sitting by it, squat as any toad, 
And quite as venemous in mien and air ; 

With eyes that glistened lilie a snake's, and showed 
A deadlier purpose in their venom far ; 

While, on the sleeper's tympanum he trode 
With legs of spiders and tarantulas. 
As if to show him what his nature was. 

CIX. 

Or by a psychologic law, to bring 

The soul in judgment to its own fixed seat ; 

Where troops of perjured witnesses may fling 
Their subornation at his very feet, 

And rail at conscience, with her blunted sting. 
As at a painted drab along the street ; 

And yet, where all within is still as death. 

With hushed lips parted by a scarce drawn breath. 

ex. 

In the mysterious chambers of this court, 
I see the soul stand like a culprit fay, 

Self-gyved, and manacled, and made the sport 
Of its own phantoms, dim and shadowy : — " 

A misty troop of revelers that resort 
To such incongruous mirth and levity, 

That the affrighted soul starts back with dread. 

As at some ghastly concourse of the dead. 



92 

CXI. 

But still the devil titillates his ear, 

With such adroitness as to bring in play 

Alternately some idle hope and fear, 

That chase each other in their turn away, 

Like devil's darning-needles in the air, 

That play their zigzag freaks at close of day ; 

Reminding one of how the devil stitches 

His worldly rents up, in a parson's breeches ! 

CXII. 

Which he now does in such a clever way, 
And with such double and back-handed stitches. 

That scarce a parson's found, in our day, 

Who does not boast some patches to his breeches, 

Of party-color, devil-mixed, or gray. 

Sewed on by this half-tailor — to show which is, 20 

And which is not, by devil deemed below, 

The proper church where knaves and fools should go. 

CXIII. 

This last verse ambles ; but 'tis not the fault 

Of the high-mettled Pegasus I found 
Once on a time, in the far west, and caught 

By a chance lasso, thrown his neck around ; 
I've never tamed the animal, nor brought 

His neck to know its rider ; but I've found 
Him ever ready for a "brush" with those. 
Who would dispute the classic hoof he throws. 



93 

CXIV. 

I know his strength, his grace, his beauty ; I 
Know, besides, his weakness ; in fact, I know 

All that he has been to the world and me ; 
He's lost some opportunities to show 

His weight of mettle — bottom, as they say, — 
In the great Derby race of Life below ; 

But then, he was not trained for height of speed, 

But rather, for his quality of feed ! 

CXV. 

And this is no mean training, when you come 
To measure life by what a life should be ; 

A goal that's reached, implies a race that's run, 
And honors grasped, time idly thrown away ; 

The fool that babbles most, is soonest dumb. 
While he who says the least, has most say : — 

It is a law of nature that all growth 

Not imperceptible, is little worth. 

CXVI. 

Mark how the mushroom springs from, swil^ decay ; 

How rankest weeds upgrow about some spring, 
Whose dark and turbid waters seek the day ; 

How flits the insect on its filmy wing. 
And basks its little hour of life away 

In the crisp sunshine — momentary thing ; 
Then mark the oak, with gnarled trunk and limbs. 
And Jove's proud bird, as up to heaven he climbs ! 



94 

CXYII. 

These are examples of the law of growth, 

That teach us lessons, if we will but learn, 
Of some intrinsic excellence and worth ; _ 

What schoolmen know, or may in sooth discern, 11 

With their cognitions, and contempt of truth 

That does not on some logic pivot turn, 
You may yet learn yourself, from such experience 
Of men and things as I have had to query hence ! i 

CXVIII. 

There is a learning that is styled scholastic, 

Drawn from the subtleties, so called, of schools ; 

And there are those who're quite enthusiastic 
In admiration of such learned fools ; 

In their impressions, whimsical, fantastic. 
And ever ready to be counted gulls ; 

But I have learned that mental subtleties 

Mean simply this — to count the steps of fleas / ^^ 

CXIX. 

What the soul craves is utterance of itself — 

An outward sunburst of its inner light ; 
It longs to see itself in bas-relief — 

In breathing marble, speaking from the height 
Of some grand temple to the gods in chief; 

And claiming for itself diviner right, 
Than to sit down in metaphysic chair, 
And split the ninth part of some splintered hair ! 



95 
cxx. 

To prop foundations, poise the lofty dome, 
Erect the shaft and spring the arch on high ; 

To give the huge and massive pile, though dumb, 
A voice to speak the distant century, 

And summon back the ages from the tomb ; 
These are the soul's accepted destiny — 

Its struggle and its longing ; not to hide 

Itself away, like mole beneath the glebe. 

CXXI. 

But to return. The parson and the devil 
Still hug the pillow cozily together, 

Just as I left them, in my fancy's revel. 
And shot off in a tangent on the weather. 

Or on some zigzag theme, or passing cavil ; 
I'm not now certain which it was, or whether 

I shot at all ; — I only know I meant to, 

Without much caring where the d — 1 1 went to ! 

CXXII. 

For I was anxious to kill off my hero, 

(I mean Asmodeus, not the parson hoary,) 

Before my muse should tumble down to zero, 
Or lose the thread essential to my story ; 

But, as the devil had the ear of Nero, 
And titillated it with dreams of glory 

When Rome was one wild sea of dancing flame, 

And set him fiddling to achieve the same. 



96 

CXXIII. 

So DOW he had the parson's, with the same 

Brisk titillation for his tympanum ; 
Enkindling in his breast the maddened flame 

That fired the fiddling mountebank of Rome, ^2 
And gave to Eratosthenes the name 

Of the mad fool that fired the Ephesian dome ; 
In other words, he lashed the parson's brain 
Into a perfect passion for men slain, 

CXXIV. 

And those his countrymen — slain heaps on heaps. 
As Samson slew Philistia's hosts one day. 

With the jaw-bone of an old ass that sleeps 
Hard by the scene of that immortal fray ; 

Or did sleep there, when Samson turned his steps 
Towards Dagon's temple, in Philistia, 

And swore to be avenged, for his lost hair, 

On all his wife's relations living there ! 

cxxv. 

And so he was. Perhaps you've read the story 

In all its splendid oriental dress. 
Which certain modern critics, with a sorry 

Show of their learning, if not cleverness. 
Treat as a myth ; as if the inventory 

Of foxes' tails and fire-brands, were less 
A truth of history than that other tale. 
Which treats of Jonah's sea-voyage in a whale ! 



97 

CXXYI. 

I hate the carper ; scorn, detest, despise, 
And hold in utter loathing all his race ; 

Who from the soul would pluck the starry eyes 
Of faith and hope, that in their heavenward gaze 

Eclipse the stellar glory of the skies, 

And sweep beyond the outmost milky-ways — 

Or paths of heaven by seraphs wildly trod — 

Up to the throne and monarchy of God ! 

CXXVII. 

I hate the carper ; but I hate no less 
The hypocrite, who lives and dies a slave 

To this world's estimate of righteousness ; 
And fawns upon success in practiced knave, 

Who snatches honor from some damned disgrace, 
And wears it flauntingly ; as if to brave 

Opinion of mankind, no matter what 

It be, or whether he be damned or not ! 

CXXVIII. 

I hate the carper ; but I loathe, abhor, 

Contemn, abjure, scorn, curse, and doubly damn 

The pulpit mountebank, who clamors for 

The wrath of heaven to smite his fellow man ; 

Who does not pray, or gulp some dogma, or 

Bestride some hobby, or "go" some whim-wham, 

According to his notion; as if he 

Were theocratic lord of earth and sea. 



98 

CXXIX. 

I hate the carper ; but I'd rather be 

A thousand times such carper than such knave, 
With all the honors that theology 

Could heap on me ; and honors she may have 
That I might covet with avidity, 

Were I in mood to do so, or to crave 
The slightest honor that adorns these days, 
When to be damned, one needs but faintest praise. 

cxxx. 

But to resume. Asmodeus plies his skill 

At titillation till his work is done, 
Or till the dreamer's face betrays a smile 

At sight of Death, blood-drunk upon his throne ; 
With thousands madly rushing in to fill 

His audience chamber, where he sits alone 
In grim, majestic, awful state and mood, 
As if to ape the presence of a god ; 

OXXXI. 

And there " grins horrible a ghastly smile," 
To find his famine glutted, and his maw 

Relieved at length by Puritanic bile, 

That, Shylock-like, seeks warrant in the law, 

Or " bond denominate," for blood to spill ; 
With just enough of conscience left to gnaw 

At certain vital points Religion hath 

Reserved for little souls, to cloud their faith. 



99 

CXXXII. 

Asmodeus marks the dreamer's face and grin, 
And knows his task is ended. He has played 

Upon his tympanum till all within 

Is tempered to his liking, with no shade 

Of doubt or fear, or anything akin 
To them or either, outwardly displayed : — 

And so he vanishes the key-hole through. 

Just as the day-spring deepens into view. 

CXXXIII. 

But this precaution takes, to sprinkle o'er 
The sleeper's mind, as on his couch he lies, 

Some titillating dust of hellebore, 
The better to control his faculties, 

And keep them with the devil en rapport ; 
For well he knows that once to narcotize 

The soul with deadly night shade, from that hour 

It parts with all resistance to Ms power. 

CXXXIY. 

Here ends my second canto. It is longer 
Than I intended on the start to make it, 

But it has grown in length as maid grows younger 
At six-and-thirty — chastely, as I take it ; 

Though not more spiteful than her gentle tongue, or 
Disposition, with her snowy neck hit 

Off as " scrawny" by some thoughtless lover, 

Who thinks her "plump as any snipe or plover." 



100 

cxxxv. 

But ere I turn my jaded Pegasus 

Out on the wayside for his wisp of clover, 

Such as the bees sip lovingly, or pass, 

When too much sipped already, to discover 

Some virgin blossoms in the fragrant grass. 
With nectared sweets all capped and hymened over; 

I say, before I do this, I would make 

A single dash at pulpit mountebank. 

CXXXVI. 

Proud as a Oappadocian horse is he 

Of his great leai'ning, (just enough to quote,) 

But prouder of his " lost virginity 
Of oratory," which he gets by rote ; 

Bringing his Ciceronian powers in play, 
Not to save souls, but to get men to vote : 

A " loyal" ballot being more essential, 

To build a church up, than a soul-credential. 

CXXXVII. 

For ballots now-a-days are the sole test 
Of piety — but not, thank God ! of brains, — 

And are to all the churches what " Saints' Rest" 
And "Baxter's Call" are to the sinner's stains; 

They wipe out all rascality when cast 

Into the party scales the Church maintains, 

And prove the fact that " suffrage," not religion, 

Reclaims a soul in this enlightened region. 



101 

CXXXVIII. 

I mean the grand illuminating focus, 

Or center of all " blue light," in the land ; 

Famed for its whim-whams, mental hocus-pocus, 
And humbug notions into numsculls crammed ; 

Where parsons in the pulpit learn to joke us 
The stalest kind of jokes at their command, 

And every little upstart of a preacher 

Attempts to ape some mountebank or Beecher. 

OXXXIX. 

One of this stamp I've noted with some pains, 
Whose history shows how far a little brass 

Will carry a small quantity of brains ; 
Especially in the pulpit, where one has 

A clean thing on his audience, with the reins 
And lash in his own hands, to use them as 

He chooses, — on some fool, or knave, or brother, 

Just as he happens to cull one from t'other! 

CXL. 

He preaches not a thousand miles away 

From two great thoroughfares ; the one, a street 

Where fashion's butterflies disport the day 
In all their glory — Sundays most complete; 

The other, where the iron horses neigh 
And champ impatiently the fiery bit. 

Till like Job's war-steeds they cry out " Ha ! ha !" 

Then smoke along the plain with thundering car ; 
7 



102 

CXLI. 

And is the jest of all the wags a -street, 
Who fling their jibes at ministerial air 

And pomp and vanity, as is most meet 
For wags to do. For the lex tal. is fair, 

And what the pulpit gives them it should get ; 
Especially, since peccadilloes are 

Its daily foible, with not half as much 

Of crim. con. and scan mag. in State as Church ! 

OXLII. 

No wonder that the wags this edict hurled 
Once on a time against a certain church, 

Whose "loyalty" and virtue were unfurled 
In banners on the outer walls as such : — 

' No one admitted back into the world. 

Whose sins you do not father quite as much 

As you did all his virtues when you took him. 

And we, with our moralities, forsook him !" 

CXLIII. 

But here we throw the rein, and with it, too, 
The mantle of our charity. We have been 

Upon a break-neck nag this canto through, 
With little thought perhaps to rein Rim in. 

Save at a venture, when some line or two 
Struck us as outre, or to limp akin ; 

And then we only draw the rein enough 

To make him plant a firmer, steadier hoof- 



103 



CXLIY. 



We throw the rein, and with it also throw 

A mantle wide of charity o'er deeds 
That few so base as openly avow, 

Though many seek to compass, as who reads 
The future history of our strife shall know ; 

Truth crushed to earth plants deep its living seeds, 
And always thrives the best on trampled soil, 
Where giant wrong hath been to wring the spoil. 

CXLV. 

We throw the rein, and this our precept too : — 
Truth crushed to earth shall heavenward rise again, 

Like wayside flowers that lift their heads aglow 
With a far sweeter fragrance when they've been 

All rudely trampled on by passing foe, 

Than when in Flora's gentle arms they've lain 

The long night through, and wake at early dawn 

To greet Aurora, jeweled-Queen of Morn ! 



CANTO THE THIED. 



Oh thou, Hesperia ! thou, my native land ! 

How burns my soul to wipe thy tears away, 
And bathe thy starry forehead with the hand 

That shall thy griefs assuage, thy fears allay ! 
Accursed forever be the traitor hand 

Upraised against thy life, free-born Hesperia ! 
Perdition on their souls whose impious breath 
Breathed the foul lie that thou wert leagued with death ! 

II. 

And worse than swift perdition be the curse 
That lights upon their souls, who dared decry 

Thy starry emblem in their drunken verse, 

And bid the world " tear down the flaunting lie ;" ^ 

And curses deep and loud and long and worse 
Than ever leapt from tongue of mortal, be 

Upon their heads, the foul and leprous knaves. 

Who, •' standing on two hundred thousand graves," 



106 



III. 



Swear that " the Union, as it was, shall die ;" 
And that the august name of Washington 

Shall be struck down as one of infamy— 
No more to blacken history. Oh, for one 

Eternal, blighting curse to blast their lie ! 
And oh, Hesperia ! brightest star that shone 

From out the Western sky, come forth again. 

And in thy glory hide their damning shame 1 

lY. 

This invocation is upraised to thee. 

Oh thou, my country ! with the fervent prayer 
That heaven may yet vouchsafe thee unity. 

And peace, and concord, reigning everywhere 
In all thy borders, widespread as the sea ; 

With strife and jar, and tumult and wild war, 
Hushed like the angry waves that cease and die, 
When the fierce storms that give them life pass by. 

Y. 

We left the Peri with the guardian seraph 

Of that abscinded church, wherein was preached 

Peace and good-will to men — two things whereof 
'Twas treason doubly-damned and foully reached 

For one to utter ; as, with proper share of 

Our " patent loyalty," none could have stretched ^ 

Opinion less, nor further, for that matter. 

And so there rose a devil of a clatter 



107 



VI. 



About the church's ears, as I have stated. 

I've told you how Saint Peter was affected 
By it, as on his tympanum it grated 

Harshly as thunder, with its bolt ejected 
From cloud to earth, or spit from perforated 

Mountain top, that darkly stands erected 
Against the sky, into the very face 
Of heaven, which thunders back in wrath apace. 

YII. 

I've told you also how the devil chuckled, 
High in his sleeve, to see the dismal farce 

Played by ecclesiastics, when they buckled 

Their swords a-thigh, and stalked a-field apace ; 

All swearing that their patriot sires had truckled 
To the * slave power," to their damned disgrace, 

When they upreared the pillars of the state 

For their race only, and then smashed the slate ! ^ 

VIII. 

They periled not their fortunes, honor, lives, 
As heroes should, but as base hirelings do. 

Who fight for country, kindred, home, and wives, 
And — devil take the hindmost Kickapoo ! 

Oblivious of the fact that Freedom gives 
More honor in bestowal upon two. 

Unable to achieve it, than on ten 

Right stalwart arms that break the tyrant's chain ! 



108 



IX. 



God knows I venerate our patriot sires, 
And hold in awe their consecrated dust ; 

But then, this dastard act and crime of theirs. 
Of striking for their country's altars first, 

And last, and foremost, whilst they quenched the fires 
Of Liberty in Utopia, calls for just 

Such censure as they get, by tongue and pen. 

From the whole tribe of atrabilious men. 



And such a tribe ! The triple-headed dogs 
Of' Plato, guarding fast the gates of hell ; 

The mad Centauri, in Thessalian bogs, "^ 
Foully engendering, by some double spell, 

With man and beast; the herd of swine or hogs 
That down a certain steep place ran pell-mell 

Into the sea — the devil in them all, — 

Are but the types and symbols they recall. 

XI. 

But I digress. What right have Pluto's dogs, 
Or other barking curs, to have their day 

In this brief canto, while the Peri jogs 
The Muse's elbow for a grand display 

Of re-ascending rapture, with all clogs 
To the imagination brushed away, 

As one would brush the sheerest cobwebs by. 

With his rapt vision piercing earth and sky. 



109 



XII. 



The Peri's errand from the skies is done ; 

Her mission ended ; and the record sought, 
Obtained, and ready to be heavenward borne ; 

While in her breast the sweet seraphic thought 
Of entrance into rest again, is one 

That lifts her up, as mountain mists are caught 
And held mid-air, in circling rifts of snow, 
By the pale moonlight, glinting far below. 

XIII. 

And now on wings as motionless as air, 

And as invisible to mortal sense, 
The Peri takes her flight, keen-glancing far 

Into immensity, as seeking thence 
Some long-lost pharo in a distant star, 

To guide her upward through the void immense ; 
If void it may be called that doth include 
All things within itself— Infinitude ! 

XI \^. 

I see her still on rapid pinions glide 
Into the crystal depths of upper air. 

As if the starry mansions opened wide 

Their glittering portals to receive her there ; 

Or she were upward borne on rushing tide, 
Or some magnetic wave that swept afar 

Its jeweled crest, as if to lave the bars 

Of golden light that trickled from the stars ! 



110 

XV. 

I see her still upborne into the sky, 

As one oft sees a dazzling object fled, J 

Long after it has faded from the eye ^ 

Of outward sense, whereon its image played ; 
Or as one sees the sun for hours gone by, 

When his fierce beam upon the eye has shed 
The glory of his lustre, blinding sight 
By sheer excess and ecstacy of light. 

XVI. 

Skirting awhile the fleecy zone that lies i 

Midway 'twixt earth and heaven, and is the path j 

That seraphs climb in rapture to the skies. 
She seems a starry embryon that hath 

For the first time revealed to mortal eyes 
Its timid light, trembling as if some scath. 

Or sinful taint, might come upon its ray. 

Shot from its pale orb in the Milky-way. 

XVII. 

And now no longer down the steep of heaven 
Her penciled ray is shed, but with strong wing 

Well practiced in such flight when upward given, 
She makes Astrsea's bounds, whose crystal spring 

Drips golden light at dawn as well as even ; 
Giving the dappled East its coloring, 

And the effulgent West its parting glow, 

As rubies blush on necks of driven snow. 



Ill 

XYIII. 

Saint Peter wept at the celestial gate, 

Or rather had been weeping there till now, 

When, thinking of the Peri's lost estate 
And the long penance she had still to do, 

He caught a glimpse, far down the glittering height, 
Of seraph pinions flashing into view ; 

And wondered whence she came, the wanderer there, 

From what lost world or madly-fallen star. 

XIX. 

But she ascends with thought-outrunning speed, 
Cleaving the pathless ether in her flight, 

As lightning cleaves the cloud with winged steed. 
Or rather rives it, with a shaft of light ; 

Still flashing upward swift as arrow sped 
At the fierce Python by Apollo's might. 

Or swift as shaft sprung from Diana's bow 

When on Mount Athos she pursues the roe. 

XX. 

Her flight continues. Seraphs heavenly fair 
Await her coming at the gates of light, 

And wing her welconies as she wings the air 
In her ecstatic, heaven-regaining flight ; 

And as she nears the glittering ramparts there, 
A thrill of rapture runs along the height. 

As runs a spark along the electric chain, 

Whose links, long parted, meet to clasp again. 



112 

XXI. 

A heaven regained ! Well might a seraph's wing 
Have flashed the glories of that upper sky 

As did the Peri's, on her entering 

The gates of light, thrown wide as she drew nigh 

Bearing the record she was sent to bring. 
For prompt revision, to the courts on high, — 

The courts of last resort, where giant wrong 

And priestly domination have no tongue ; 

XXII. 

But silent, dumb, confounded, stand aghast. 
As stands the culprit doomed himself to die 

On his own gallows, Haman-like, at last, 
By him erected to the heavens high ; 

His mask stripped off, the villain thorough-paced 
Exposed, and made the jest of his own lie ; 

While through his soul reverberates the curse, 

Thundered from a dismantled Universe ! 

XXIII. 

Saint Peter took the record, glanced it over, 
Quite hurriedly at first, and then more slowly ; 

As if it puzzled him to guess the mover 

Of so much craft, among the " meek and lowly ;' 

Unless they stood in need of springe or cover 
To bait the devil's woodcock, and could so lie 

In wait for them, that, when he flushed his game, 

(I mean the devil,) they might bag the same ! 



113 



XXIV. 



This stirred Saint Peter's choler, till he got 
As mad as a March hare, and roundly swore ^ 

By his official keys, that he would boot 
The first vile Puritan he met with, or 

Be instantly unfrocked upon the spot. 
" I'm not placed here," he said, " as janitor 

Of this establishment, merely to be 

The devil's turn-key to hypocrisy !" 

XXV. 

In saying this, Saint Peter thought to say 

His mind, at least, which needed just then vent ; 

For whilst he spoke, there stalked a grim array 
Of Puritans outside, who seemed intent 

On getting into heaven their own way ; 

And who on earth had coarsely daubed the saint 

After the Beecher fashion, that is, with 

A firm conviction that the devil's a myth ! ^ 

XXVI. 

They came up boldly and demanded entrance, 
As if they owned all heaven, in fact, in fee. 

And simply had dropped round to get their quit-rents, 
And ask about their tenants' "loyalty ;" 

Giving instruction to have promptly sent hence 
All deputations from " Secessia," 

And sending word, as notice to the " Governor," 

That he to them the affairs of heaven might turn over ! ^ 



114 

XXYII. 

Saint Peter stared as if in dumb amazement, 
And would have guessed a bedlam fresh let loose, 

Had he not known what such a moral phase meant. 
In soul 3 like theirs. As architects oft use 

Their refuse stuff to finish up a basement, 
So the Great Builder of the Soul doth choose, 

In fashioning base minds to their true spheres, 

To take the odds and ends of all ideas. 

XXVIII. 

And minds thus fashioned are like jangled bells, 
Discordant, harsh, and ever out of tune ; 

That pierce the air in maddened shrieks and yells 
Of mu'th or rage, as each may find a tongue ; 

Or else lie musicless like oroken shells 

Along the surf, where the mad breakers run, 

And shake their deafening clamors, — strewing wide 

The shattered wrecks they make on every side. 

XXIX. 

And here Saint Peter called on Michael, who. 
With dauntless pinion, wings the nether air 

As well as upper, instantly to go 
A.nd summon the Apostles to repair 

At once to heaven's gate. " I've got a clue," 
He said, " to what the devil's up to there, 

With his * ex parte councils ;' and I guess 

I'll block his game, with all his craftiness." 



115 

XXX. 

And handing the archangel his warrant, he 
Made fast the gates of light against a group 

Of Puritans outside ; putting the key 
Into his pocket, which he buttoned up 

Just in the nick of time ; that is to say, 
In time to save its contents from a troop 

Of well-drilled digits, that, deploying, made 

Upon his pocket an incipient raid. 

XXXI. 

The Apostles came. Saint Matthew being first. 
And wearing on his thigh the very sword 

That struck him down a martyr in the dust 
Of Ethiopia, where he preached the word. 

Or sought to preach it, to the great disgust 
Of bushmen tribes, whose stolid wit preferred. 

To broken symbols of the Church, a chine 

Or two of good jerked missionary loin ! ^ 

XXXII. 

Saint Mark was next, the meek disciple of 
Peter himself, who greeted his old friend 

And master with such warmth, it showed the love 
Of earth was still too strong in him to end ; 

Though some assert that mutual cares above 
Dissolve our earthly bonds, and make us mend 

Our manners as our morals in the skies, 

Since we have there no sublunary ties. 



116 

XXXITI. 

And then Saint Luke, the steady friend of Paul, 
Because he was converted to the faith 

By him at Antioch, where he had a call 
As chief physician against mortal scath, 

And not diseases of the soul at all ; 
But he of Tarsus showed another path, 

Which was, to pill the body, on the whole, 

With such rare pellets as to save the soul. 

XXXIV. 

The others came without regard to order. 
Or even precedence, save John and Paul, 

Who arm in arm next greeted the old warder 
Of heaven's gate, as one who held them all 

In his official keeping and strict guard, or 
Now and then let out on their parole ; 

Which last he always did at such odd times 

As they grew crotchety — to air their whims ! ^ 

XXXV. 

And thus convened, Saint Peter held discourse 

In his blunt fashion, rough as angular : 
' On that mad ball of ours, what time the curse 
And stain of sin were on it everywhere ; 

And we all suffered martyrdom, or worse. 
Had our faith jeered at as a bald affair; 

A fraud, a cheat, a sham ; and where our sad brows 

Had nearly sent us all into a madhouse ; 



117 



XXXVI. 

" The devil roamed at large, as you well know, 
And tried his hand on us as well as others ; 

But we so managed it to give a blow 
As well as take, and thereby spoil his feathers 

When he would play the peacock for the crow, 

Or something blacker ; though his loosened tethers, 

Or length of chain, gave us a deal of trouble, 

While gleaning wheat from fields of human stubble. 

XXXYII. 

" I've got a record here," continued he, 
" Penned by the only seraph left on earth. 
Which shows the devil up to deviltry 

Beyond all precedent, since the undated birth 
Of those foul whelps of sin, engendering free 

With the gaunt monster, hideously called Death, 
Who stalks a grisly horror still athwart 
Man's path to heaven, and brandishes his dart." 

XXXVIII. 

Saint Simon Zealot, in his zealous way. 
Snatched up the document and read it first, 

Then frowned majestically, that is so say, 

Frowned as a good saint should at things accursed; 

And thus exclaimed : "Of all the fiends at bay 
In nether pit, there's not a devil that durst 

Obtrude his guilty head, and upward hiss 

A sentiment to heaven as vile as this." 
8 



118 

XXXIX. 

And Simon read : " Since he has dared to preach 
And pray for peace, the white-wing'd messenger, 

We'll plant the canons of our church, and breach 
His walls, uncanonized till now ; or stir 

The devil up to do for us as much. 
And open on him with a coup defer ; 

This upstart orator, that dares to pray 

For peace on earth in heaven's, not our way !" ^ '^ 

XL. 

' What jolly sect is that ?" inquired Saint Jude, 
Who was a little deaf, but still could hear 

Enough to relish any joke, if good : 
" I thought the fools all dead and knaves all here," 

(Casting an eye, in which a twinkle showed. 
Upon some Puritans that still stood near,) 

' And earth quite free from all such human * sparrows' 

As those that punctured me to death with arrows !" 

XLI. 

Saint James the Less was in no mood for mirth, 
And thought it out of place in Jude to speak 

Thus lightly of his martyrdom on earth ; 
He was himself the victim of mere pique, 

Thrown from a temple and then mauled to death 
By a vile fuller's club laid on his back ; — 

The meanest kind of martyrdom, he thought, 

And worse than Jude's, for he was only shot. 



119 



XLII. 



' Pray, do not wrangle," said Bartholomew, 
"About the manner of your taking off, 
'Twas no doubt grievous at the time, and drew 

Some imprecations from you that were tough ; 
But it was nothing to what / went through 

In Lycaonia, where I took each cuff 
And kick they gave, and managed to forgive 
The very king that had me flayed alive." 

XLIII. 

* Why," interposed Saint Andrew, "is this boast?" 

To lose your tegumentary covering, is 
No doubt a great calamity, and just 

The one you should avoid, unless your lease 
Of life demands that you give up the ghost, 

And part with all your earthly dross and dress ; 
But then it matters little what you wear 
On earth, if you have proper raiment here." 

XLIV. 

* That's true," said John, " but what if you had died 

At banquet feasting, and not on the cross 
Fasting and praying, as you nobly did % 

Your earth-life had been counted but as dross 
To the refined gold it was when tried 

In heaven's alembic; and there'dbeen abuzz, 
A murmur of complaint, throughout the skies. 
To see you crowned with your victorious bays." 



120 



XLV. 

" And you," said Thomas, doubting as he spoke, 

" Were boiled in oil, I think you said, at Rome, 
And had at Ephesus your neck nigh broke 

By certain * roughs' that deemed you troublesome ; 
And this, according to your notion, took 

You straight to heaven, or gave the right to come ; 
I doubt if this be good theology, 
And shall look in my text-books just to see !" 

XLVI. 

Saint James the Great could scarce restrain a smile, 

And playfully remarked to Phillip, who 
Stood silent by, though much amused the while ; 
" I wonder what our doubting friend would do, 
If all earth's doubts were banished to some isle, 

Sea-girt and lone, like Crusoe's and his crew ?" 
" He'd no doubt seek," said Phillip, " some rare * pet* 
Of doubt, and, Crusoe-like, turn anchoret !" 

XLYII. 

Saint Paul, with that high dignity and grace 
Which marked his earthly bearing, said that he, 

In all due deference to the time and place 
And subject-matter of their pleasantry. 

Must call his friends to order ; " We transgress 
That higher law," he said, ** of courtesy, 

When summoned here some worldly doubt to sift, 

To cavalierly turn the point adrift." 



121 



XLVIII. 

And then proceeded to lay bare the craft 
And guile of those who got up their ex parte 

Or *' loyal" council, more intensely chafed 

At prayers for peace and Union than at hearty 

Shouts for a " rebel" victory, telegraphed ^ ^ 
From fields of slaughter that would start Astarte 

From her Sidonian dreams of carnage wild, 

With trampled thousands scattered o'er the field. 

XLIX. 

He'd read the record which the Peri brought 

With such celerity from earth below, 
And thought it time these mundane fools were taught 

To mend their manners, and their morals too ; 
Especially the clergy, who had sought 

To raise the devil generally, and sow 
Seeds of dissension where they should have sown 
Those of repentance for themselves alone. 

L. 

And further held that earthly councils were 

So subject to revision in the skies, 
That when ex parte and irregular, 

As this one was, a certiorari lies 
To bring the record up where they might square 

The action to the intent, and thus devise 
Some antidote, or prophylactic, for 
The hellish passions that engender war. 



122 



LI. 

The Quaker-burners and witch-hangers of 
Old Plymouth Rock, were on another dance 

Around their hell-broth cauldron ; to approve 

Old Praise-Grod-bare-bones' love of hell and chance : — 

Two pivots in his faith whereon doth move 
That universal " hub" of arrogance, 

Called Boston, — the cleverest place alive, 

For atheistic piety to thrive ! ^ ^ 

LIL 

A city that is dubbed, par excellence. 

The " Athens of America" by those 
Why think old Gunny-bags has got the sense 

To pay for praise, rubbed in by verse and prose ; 
But just as like to Athens as a fence 

Is to a hedgehog in a classic grove ; 
To use a simile of contrariety, 
In speaking of a place of so much piety ! 

LIII. 

It boasts its Museums, Lyceums, Athensea, 
And temples to the gods, like those of Greece ; 

Its sages, wise men, heroes of Platsea, 

And Jasons voyaging for the golden fleece ; 

Its mysteries of Cybele and Rhea, 
And Sybaritse known to the police ; 

And boasts, besides, its doctors of divinity, 

Who, with the devil, war against the Trinity. 



123 



LIV. 



It also boasts its famous Blarney-stone, 

Or Plymoutli Rock, whereon the Pilgrims landed 

What time the dauntless Pym and Hampden shone 
Above their peers, and Justice, even-handed, 

Weighed her decrees against the kingly throne, 
As well as subject when with treason branded; 

That is to say, what time the Puritan 

Grew timely valiant and from danger ran ! ^ ^ 

LV. 

His is a history that's to be writ, 

Not written as we say of fallen Babel, 

That anciently was Nimrod's hunting-seat ; 
Where Nebucadonoser ('tis no fable) 

Once turned to grazing from a dearth in meat ; 
And Daniel in the lions' den was able 

To shut the lions' mouths without a muzzle, 

Which puzzled King Darius to unpuzzle ! 

LVI. 

This was in substance, not in manner, what 
Saint Paul alleged, by way of prelude to 

His grand indictment, against those who thought 
To gain admittance into heaven through 

Their own vile deeds, or those by Satan wrought ; 
There being little difference 'twixt the two, 

Save that the devil gave the better reason 

For his transcendent perjury and treason ! 



124 



LVII. 



And did not play the hypocrite to gain 

Such angels to his cause as thought to fight 

For heaven's supremacy and ancient reign, 

And then strike down their sacred cause and right 

Nor in the very heat of battle plain, 

When thousands had gone to death and night, 

Turn his artillery against the sky 

To blot the stars from out the canopy. 

LYIII. 

Nor bellow ** treason" against such as strove 
To save the skies from their impending wreck, 

When angels shot their spheres like stars above, 
And joined the devils* grand symposiac, 

Or merry-making council ; to approve 
War waged along the universal track 

Of heaven, that the devil might have his day. 

And found an empire on Equality ! 

LIX. 

And who but Satan, who but only he. 

E'er sought to build a state on such foundation ! 

Where every race, and tribe, and Chimpanzee, 
And chattering monkey, might, by mis'genation, 

Stand in the scale of grand equality. 
And hold an equal place, and rank, and station ! 

Sure none but he, or politician scurvy, 

E'er sought to turn a world thus topsy-turvy. 



125 



LX. 

But to resume. Saint Paul's indictment read, 
And duly pondered in their august state, 

Saint Peter was directed to have made 
A summons for some Puritans, whose hate 

And want of charity on earth, had led 
Them into every kind of broil and strait : 
" Call Roger Williams," said Saint Paul, " or rather, 

First call Ann Hutchinson and Richard Mather ! ' ^ 

LXI. 

The female shadow came, but not the other; 

And Michael, wbo had served the summons, swore, 
Or made return, with affidavit, rather. 

That be had searched his bailiwick quite o'er. 
And could not find a solitary Mather, 

Clergy or lay, this side of Pluto's shore. 
" They're all on 'tother side," he added, " which is 
By far the best place now for burning witches ! 

LXII. 

" But not so always," ventured Ann, the shadow 

Of Massachusetts' heretic, to say ; 
•• For when your Puritanic saint is mad, or 
In a frenzy, then the devil's to pay, 
As from my own experience, once had, or 

Suffered rather, I can well bewray ; 
And when he gets an over-pious whim in- 
To his head, he takes to hanging women 



126 



LXIII. 



' As naturally as a duck to water, or 

A crow to carrion, or a hen to eggs 
When the first fit of incubation's on her, 

And she instinctively ties up her legs. 
I knew, in life, your reverend Richard Mather ; 

He preached, in Boston, against female plagues, 
Who did not wear their flipperjigs, and * sew 
Pillows to all armholes,' as most women do. 

LXIV. 

* 'Simplex munditiis' is the Horatian rule ; 

I followed it, or tried to, when on earth ; 
But every Puritanic priest and fool 

Cried out against it as of hellish birth, 
And swore I went quite nude to church at Yule, 

Or ancient Christmas, to provoke their mirth, 
Or, what was worse, their passions, or what not, 
It is so long since then I have forgot." 

LXV. 

Meanwhile Saint Peter looked into his books 
To see what Puritanic names he had, 

And seemed quite blank and puzzled in his looks. 
To find that none as yet were registered ; 

And rummaged further into sundry nooks 

And dog-eared corners, where he'd briefly made 

Some *' dead-head" entries once upon a time, 

He knew not from- what motive, or what whim. 



127 



LXYI. 



But fancied it was done by way of trial, 

To see how awkwardly a ghost would stalk, 

That played the saint on earth without denial 
Of worldly hates and passions ; and whose walk 

And conversation led to every vial 

Of petty wrath a Christian could uncork ; 

I mean a Christian after the straight sect, 

Known as the Pharisee, or the " elect." 

LXYII. 

' The case is awkward," said Saint Jude, " but we 
Must homehow manage to secure the attendance 

Of these old Puritans. Perhaps a fee 

To Charon might obtain them, but to send thence 

Without a ' sop' to Ceberus, would be 
Entirely futile. Still our chief dependence 

Is on the swift-wing'd Michael ; let him go 

With a subpoena to the shades below." 

LXVIII. 

Michael appearing, promptly took the order, 
And downward swooped, like eagle for his prey, 

Nor stayed his flight till he had reached the border 
Of Lucifer's dominions ; where they lay 

Much like old Massachusetts, that is, broader 
Along the coast than inland from the bay ; 

With shoals, and quicksands, and a treacherous beach, 

And " blue lights" burning to entice the wretch. 



128 

LXIX. 

" Michael !" inquired the Prince of Air, *' why here, 
Before the gate of him you dare not serve ? 

Your present aspect and the badge you wear, 
Bespeak you in His service still above ; 

But what's your mission to these fields of air, 
Where I hold guard, and bodily approve 

My presence and my power 1 Hence, depart ! 

Or you'll provoke a more than mortal dart." 

LXX. 

" Look to your laurels well before you strike," 
Retorted Michael. *' I have felt your power. 

As you have mine ; and he's a lunatic, 

Or worse than one, who would, at this late hour, 

Provoke the other to a combat like 

Our last; in which, you must allow, I bore 

An equal part at least, and saw you hurled 

Headlong and flaming to this nether world." 

LXXI. 

" But by whose arms ? Not yours, though bright they shine 
As polished steel of heavenly temper wrought; 

Nor by your prowess, which, compared with mine, 
Were like gross substance to the living thought 

That shapes the universe to forms akin 

To its own essence. Pray, inform me what 

Has brought you hither in such high hot haste. 

Unless you seek of war another taste ?" 



129 



LXXII. 

I'll frankly tell you, with your boasts aside, 

That ill become you in your present state; — 
Within your purgatorial realms abide, 

Some sundry souls that you would gladly set 
At liberty, I think, since they deride 
Your power, and hold you in contempt and hate." 
" What ! those who raised the devil on earth, and thought, 
When they got here, to set the devil at naught ?" 

LXXIII. 

" Precisely they — the most identical," 

Responded Michael ; " and my mission here, 

Is to relieve you of their charge until 
An Apostolic council, held elsewhere, 

Shall need their presence to correct their bile; 
Or question them about a certain sphere. 

Which most supplies your kingdom here below 

With immigration, as the figures show." 

LXXIV. 

The Prince here bowed, and with a gracious smile, 
Exclaimed, " I'm with you ! Prithee, no petition ; 

But take each Puritanic priest and vile. 
And broken-down old hack of politician. 

And purge the atrabilious knaves of bile ; 

'Twill save my kingdom from its next sedition. 

And save, besides, some several thousand broils. 

And quite relieve me of the lust of spoils." 



130 



LXXY. 

He then relaxed his diabolic brow, 

And half extended to his ancient friend 

A kindly greeting; which would seem to show 
That even Satan was inclined to mend 

At times his manners, if not morals too ; 

What scarcely can be said of priests that lend 

Themselves to politics, for then their hates 

Become immortal as the distaff'd Fates. 

LXXVI. 

Forth from the gate a troop of souls went streaming 
Like lurid light from out a cloud of wrath, 

And took a zigzag course, as does a seam in 
Some mad volcanic mountain that is loath 

To belch its flames, though with irruption teeming, 
And ploughing down its sides a fiery path ; 

While supernatural mutterings fill the air, 

Like smothered shrieks and wailings of despair. 

LXXVII. 

Michael was startled at the sight, and would 
Have ventured on expostulation ; but 

Satan, perceiving what his thought was, showed 
It quite impossible for him to shut 

The gate upon them, pouring in such flood, 
And being withal a desperate rabble-rout : — 

' You need not be alarmed," he said, '* this crew 

Will never trouble Saint Peter, nor heaven, nor you. 



131 



LXXVIII. 

' I've learned their idiosyncracies," he added, 
" And know what they will seek, and what avoid ; 
Of all localities, there is none so dreaded 

By them as heaven, where peace must be enjoyed 
As a condition precedent. The way they're headed, 

I think they'll bring up on some asteroid, 
Or fragmentary planet, where they may 
Give their explosive faculties full play ; 

LXXIX. 

' And, what's essential to your purpose, be 
Within your jurisdiction ; where an order, 

From council apostolical or lay. 

Will promptly reach them ; and thus save the warder 

Of heaven's gate from further troubling me 
With summonses to bring them to his border ; 

Which 'tis by no means certain I should do, 

Save to get rid of such a motley crew." 

LXXX. 

'■' I understand," said Michael, with a brow 

That still retained its fixed serenity, 
And kept the Devil at his distance, though 

There lurked beneath his looks a wish to be 
On friendlier terms than he had been till now ; — 

" I understand," he said, "your comity, 
But not your hate of those whose earthly spites 
Just fit them for the sphere of bedlamites." 



132 

LXXXI. 

Their parley ended, Michael winged his way 
Back to celestial bounds ; while Satan took 

A circumspective view, or wide survey 
Of his dominions ; glancing at each nook 

And corner of his realm, to see if they — 
The Puritanic troop — had really struck 

For other climes, as he had hoped they might, 

Flaming and hissing like an aerolite. 

LXXXII. 

A keen observer of the human face 

Satanic, not divine, — as sometimes rated, — 

Might have discovered in his looks a trace 
Of satisfaction, near akin related 

To what engenders mostly the grimace ; 
For never was the Devil more elated 

Than when he found his purgatorial realm 

Cleared of its viscid Puritanic phlegm ! 

LXXXIII. 

But speaking of an aerolite, how like 
To a perturbed, restless soul it is- ; 

Wandering the pathless void in lines oblique, 
And governed by no law but sheer caprice ; 

Endeavoring, like a pugilist, to strike 

At every orb that holds its course in peace, 

Or madly pitching into every planet. 

That with impunity it thinks it can hit. 



133 



LXXXIV. 

I know some politicians of this class, 

(Their name were legion, numbering them to-day,) 
Poor brainless aerolites that think to pass 

For planets in their orbs ; and flame away 
In their mad course, as if the heavens were brass, 

And earth alone illumined by their ray ; — 
They now and then explode, and sometimes fall, 
Or pass for " cosmic wonders," that is all ! 

LXXXY. 

The council was in session, with Saint Paul 
Presiding, whose high dignity and grace, 

Marked him the noblest Roman of them all ; 
While on his pale and ever-thoughtful face, 

Deliberation sat, and care withal ; 
And majesty that seemed the crowning dress 

Of his nobility, as shown on earth. 

Not in his priestly robes, but royal worth. 

LXXXVI. 

He looked a very king, and yet was chary 
Of all demeanor that proclaimed him such ; 

And though his mind was rich as any quarry 
In ancient Pavaim worked, he used as much 

The thoughts of others as his own to carry 

The many abstruse points he sought to clutch ; — 

In fact, his modesty and greatness ran 

Together, like two streams that blend in one. 

9 



134 



LXXXVII. 

He, who had sat at rare Gamaliel's feet, 
And drank the wisdom of the Orient in ; — 

All that was known of abstract and concrete 
In ancient Tarsus, through the ages dim ; 

"Where learning whilom held her chosen seat. 
And Oydnus flowed from rocky Taurus' chain ; 

Knew all that appertained to priest and man, 

And scorned to play the part of charlatan ; 

LXXXVIII. 

And, least of all, the knave in politics ; 

As I have seen the clergy of our day, 
In pulpit playing their " fantastic tricks 

Before high heaven," and men as vile as they ; 
Showing themselves, in state-craft, empirics. 

As in religion and church polity ; 
And proving beyond question, or a doubt. 
That fools and bedlamites were both let out ! 

LXXXIX. 

But I digress. The " greatest living poet" 
Says none should do so in an epic strain ; 

But he and Byron differ, so I trow it 
Is still an open question to maintain 

Or controvert, as one may wish to show it. 
Who fancies he can strike an epic vein. 

And quarry out the thoughts of living sages. 

Or dead ones that lie scattered down the ages, 



135 



xc. 

Like wrecks of over-freightecl argosies 
Along the "slimy bottom of the sea;" 

Where, in the ghastly sockets of men's eyes, 
Sleep gems and pearls, as if in mockery 

Of the once living thought that pierced the skies, 
And claimed companionship with deity : — 

So sleep the thoughts of dead men we regain, 

By plummet-sounding, down the distant main. 

XCI. 

But, as I said, the council was in session ; 

The case was called, and everything made ready 
For prompt procedure. Michael puts a question 

Of some perplexity, and thinks a speedy 
Decision should be had, without suppression 

Of fact or circumstance. " The truth is," said he, 

* The devil insists upon his own attendance. 
And brooks him no denial I may send hence. 

XCII. 

• He claims the right of cross-examination 

For all his witnesses, and says, without it, 
Your council will be but an iteration 

Of that on earth, with less of form about it ; 
And thinks that you should issue a citation 

To bring him in, where he can give a stout hit 
At priests and parsons, in a certain quarter, 
Who daub at present with untempered mortar. 



136 



XCIII. 

'Let no citation issue," said Saint Peter; 

" For that would be a virtual recognition 
That lie has rights that we are bound to see to, 

If not respect, as he shall make petition ; 
When the fact is, the vile old fire-eater 

Has not a single right, save to perdition; 
But let him come and go (if so it please him) 
On this occasion, as the whim shall seize him." 

XCIV. 

The devil came, according to the adage, 

That, " talked about, he's always near at hand ;' 

As he would seem to be in this too sad age, 
With all his artifices in demand ; 

Or such of them, at least, as help our mad age 
To quite bedevil all its churches, and 

So stultify them, with its blood-ebriety. 

That they mistake bedevilments for piety ! ^ ^ 

XCV. 

And with him came Asmodeus, in such guise, 
He seemed another Proteus run mad ; 

At first he looked an owl and very wise, 
And then an ape, and then a weazened lad ; 

Changing as did the cloud to Hamlet's eyes, 
Or rather those in old Polonius' head : — 

At first a camel, then a weasel's tail. 

And then again so *' very like a whale." 



137 



XCVL 

And yet he had a most malicious look, 

And wore it all the while, as does a minister 

A sanctimonious face for his own flock ; 

Put on sometimes from motives quite as sinister 

As what inspired the devil when he took 

His first voyage after deviltry to Finis- Terre, 

Or " Land's-end," as this mundane sphere of ours 

Was whilom called by the infernal powers. 

XCVII. 

But I am getting hard into a hundred 
Stanzas of this my last mad canto, and 

Must keep the thread of narrative unsundered, 
Or my discursive fancy will soon land 

Me high and dry, and leave my task unthundered 
Both in the index and the printer's hand ; 

And save the snarling critics and reviewers 

From quite exhausting all their inky sewers. 

XCVIII. 

I know what some will say, and others write; 

How contumaciously some mighty plumes 
Will hold their ink, refusing to indite 

Censure or praise. What piles and hecatombs 
Will be upreared, of party hate and spite ; 

How they will suck their dirty, inky thumbs, 
And swear the thing is damnable, and so forth, 
But wherein, not so politic to show forth. 



138 

XCIX. 

I know that some will •* rip" and others " swear" 
Most toweringly ; that some will put on airs 

And bear themselves, or try to, with hauteur, 
And others " damn it" even in their prayers ; 

Some will, in spite of all denials, wear 
The coat we fit them — put it on as theirs ; 

Others will writhe like serpents and scotch bless us. 

Or damn us roundly, for this robe of Nessus. 



Some, like the viper that assailed the file, 
Will gnaw at us, and, sucking down the blood, 

Imagine they have struck a vein of bile 
From which to quarry most delicious food ; 

But when they've gnawed till they have got their fill 
Of spite and hate, according to their mood. 

They'll find, as did the viper, with a sigh, 

That they have only sucked their own veins dry. 

01. 

While others to their holes will hie and hiss ; 

Or dart their tongues at us and glide away 
With eyes as green as any basilisk, 

And quite as full of venom ; or else stay 
And coil themselves to strike at any risk, 

And, striking, rue their rash temerity ; 
Or — but I'll run the simile no further, 
For fear my muse will stumble on another. 



139 



OIL 

' Call Roger Williams !" was the order given, 

" And Richard Mather and his grandson Cotton : — 
You may not find the last two yet in heaven, 

Nor on the earth, where they were first begotten ; 
But somewhat nearer Mars, where they are given 

To smashing planets up, as if they'd naught in 
But glycerene, or some such pent-up devil 
As 'mid the fragments of a world would revel !" 

CIIL 

The shadows came, and were interrogated 
About their Puritanic creeds and notions; 

Why they had left their native land as stated, 
And braved the dangers of two several oceans ; 

And why their children ever since had prated 
About their virtues, as if they were Phocions, 

Aristideses, Platos, and what not, 

And, prating, left their principles to rot, 

CIV. 

As they had done in certain Boston churches, 

With Ohristless creeds and pulpits turned to rostrums 

Where parsons walk on stilts and laymen crutches, 
As best accords with transcendental customs ; 

And where a sea of mystery, as such, is 

Esteemed the best in which to " bob" for nostrums ; 

Or such politico-religious quackery 

As might be dished up by another Thackeray. 



140 



cv. 

And further asked them about hanging women 
For riding broomsticks in the air so high 

As to brush down the cobwebs they might spin in 
Their theologic revels through the sky ; 

Or for such other freaks as they had been in, 
As turning into black cats " on the sly," ^ ^ 

And sucking infants' breaths, and maidens' sighs, 

With other antics and rare deviltries ! 

CYI. 

And so continued a historic chain 

Of curt inquiry, till they came, at last, 

To the New Haven Council ; when 'twas plain 
The devil meant to get his " foot" in fast; 

For he at once adroitly turned the main, 
Or leading, question into a mere jest ; 

Remarking that the conclave, if demonian. 

Was none the less so than it was Baconian / 

CVII. 

' I'd like to know," said Satan, " by what few 

This Council was convened. It looks as though 

I had some hand in the affair, 'tis true, — 
Some instigations set on foot below ; 

But I will clear my skirts of this to you," 
Addressing Michael ; " for I think you know 

My antecedents well enough to grant, 

I never deal in spiritual cant, 



141 



cviii. 



' And quite as much detest political ; 

But when the two are * mixed,' it is enough 
The most demoniac appetite to pall, 

Or reach and Yomit the infernal stuff; 
Though I perceive your clergy, one and all. 

Take to it as a child to blind-man's-buif. 
That is, instinctively, or with a mind 
That * goes it' indiscriminately ' blind!' " 



CIX. 

Michael replied : " 'Tis true what you have said,- 
' True, 'tis a pity— pity 'tis, 'tis true.'— 

The fools and knaves are not as yet all dead ; 
Albeit some of late have troubled you 

With their mad exits— made as if stark mad; 
Though with the * benefit of clergy,' who 

Got up their jackass dance upon the grave 

Of liberty— a party creed to save!" 

ex. 

Asmodeus here gave Lucifer a nudge, 

And hinted that the Apostles were in haste 

To close their sitting. " Let no ancient grudge," 
Said he, *' against the clergy so o'ercast 

Your judgment with a cloud as to prejudge 
Their case, whilst they stand here aghast, 

Like convicts in a dock awaiting sentence, 

And past all hope, as they are past repentance." 



142 



CXI. 

Meanwhile Saint Paul was plying Cotton Mather 
With questions growing every minute sharper, 

Anent those Puritanic creeds, or rather 

Those practices that made the world a carper 

At Christian dogmas ; such as every Father 

Once deemed essential, and from which to warp, or 

Turn aside, was downright heresy ; 

So strictly was the faith kept in their day. 

CXII. 

* And pray," said Paul, still pressing home the point 

Of his inquiry to the reverend Cotton, 
'What right had they to coin as from a mint 

The lies they uttered, — those, I mean, who brought on 
The ecclesiastic war thus waged in print V 

(For he was speaking of the time they'd gotten 
Their famous council up on the authority 

Of Minor's great minority-majority !) ^^ 

CXIII. 

* But why hold him responsible, who had 

No hand in the affair, as I can see f 
Inquired the devil. " Surely it is bad 

Enough to be lampooned in one's own day 
For sins like his, and live in pasquinade 

Forever after ; but for one to be 
Arraigned for all the sins of all the ages. 
Is getting for his own sins damrCd good wages !" 



143 



CXIV. 



Paul frowned indignantly at this intrusion, 
But still replied : " When sins are propagated 

In any given line by sheer delusion, 
They stand to other sins so correlated, 

That all are one, as if by act of fusion ; 
The sins of fathers are thus cumulated, 

Or heaped up in their children, till they seem 

Of all past sin the quintessential cream ! 

CXY. 

' I've summoned here the Puritanic fathers 

As the great fountain-iiead and source of hate, 

And have interrogated thus the Mathers, 
And certain others, on the present state 

Of their late churches, with their party tethers ; 
And find, as I expected, that * to plate 

One's sins with gold,' and put them off for piety, 

Is Puritanic practice to satiety !" 

CXVI. 

At this the devil reefed his " caudal sail," 

As if he thought Saint Paul was after " game ;' 

Or getting to the clergy personal, 

By hints at Kallocii with his " winsome dame ;' 

Whereby there hangs a narrative, or tale 

So like the devil's, one would swear the sham 

Transcended the reality or real. 

Were Boston clergy not his beau-ideal ! 



144 



CXVII. 

The council thus proceeding, forth there came 

From out the mist a spiritual form, 
Tall, stately, grand, majestic as a flame, 

And awful as its presence in a storm ; 
Whose outward bearing seem.ed but to proclaim 

Himself a king — his fellow man a worm : — 
Retaining all the dignity of earth, 
When intellectual giants had their birth. ^ ^ 

CXVIII. 

He glanced at the Apostles with some grace 
But more hauteur, as if he deemed them men 

With little knowledge of the Greek, and less 
Of Latin, and of dialectics none ; 

Whom any sophomore of Yale could dress 
Out handsomely in logic; — if not, then 

He, the great Prex Timotheus, could show 'em 

How, syllogistically, to trip and throw 'em ! ^ ^ 

CXIX. 

He had been once a Prex who was a Prex — 
" Ay, every inch a" Prex ; and made his pupils 

Demean themselves towards him as towards a Rex — 
" Ay, every inch a" Rex : and had no scruples 

About his right to cane them, should they vex 
His temper, or refuse to go in couples 

Along the street, and promptly take their tiles off. 

Whene'er they saw him, though they might be miles off! " 



145 



cxx. 

This stately form drew near to heaven's gate, 
Where sat the Apostles in deliberation ; 

But whence it came, 'twere difficult to state ; 
Save that a somewhat slight concatenation 

Of favoring circumstances, added weight 
To the suspicion that the exact location 

Was not what one would naturally expect, 

Taking his earthly prestige with the '* elect." 

CXXL 

But come he did, in outward seeming one 
More like a god in priestly robes than man ; 

While in, and through, and round about him, shone 
A spectral light that taperingly upran 

Into a pyramidal shaft or cone, 
As if to body forth the Puritan 

Idea of righteousness ; or that nonentity 

That stalks the " ghost of a departed quantity." 

CXXII. 

As Bishop Berkeley once defined a fluxion, 
Or differential tapering down to zero ; 

Whereof it is the acme of instruction, 
In universities, to help some tyro 

Over the " Ass's Bridge," by sheer deduction. 
In crossing once myself, I seemed a hero 

Of such Gargantuan stature, that I drew 

More first sham prizes than there were of true. 



146 



CXXIII. 

O Learning ! what a glorious thing thou art ! 

O Mathematics, vel scientia 
Scientiarum / how I got by heart 

Thy mystic symbols in the days of Day 
And Stanley— ere old Yale was set apart 

To politics and glory in her way ! 
Greek and Latin ! Homer, Virgil, Livy ! 
Thine all the honors that the world can give ye ! 

CXXIV. 

And honor to Old Yale, but not to New ; 

To Yale as she once was — the pride and glory 
Of all her sons whom chance or fortune threw 

Within her pale, then sacred grown and hoary 
In honors as in years ; when proudlier grew 

The Northern heart to read her frequent story 
Of laurels for some Southern victor twined, 
Won in her splendid tournaments of mind ! ^ i 

CXXV. 

But pardon me digression. I have said 
The stately form drew near to heaven's gate, 

And there demanded to be promptly heard 
On the indictment ; first, alleging that 

'Twas anti-Puritanic spleen which led 
To this bald charge of Puritanic hate, — 

A charge that had its origin with those 

Who most had tweaked the Puritanic nose ! 



147 



CXXVI. 

Besides, the charge was frivilous, and ought 
No longer to disgrace the record. He 

Had heard it uttered times enough, he thought, 
As the mere echo of malignity ; 

Or cry of " mad dog" by such haters brought 
As Penn, and Oglethorpe, and Arthur Lee ; 

Or their descendants, with the Knickerbockers, 

Notoriously the worst religious mockers ! 

CXXYII. 

And there were others — to their shame be't said — 
New Englanders by birth, who made the charge 

A hundred times repeated on this head ; 
And had the audacity to go at large 

Without the fear of lamp posts, or the dread 
Of halters for their necks, or a balmage 

Of tar and feathers, cunningly laid on, 

As they deserved, each recreant mother's son." 

CXXYIII. 

Paul promptly interposed : " No more of such. 
Defence like this will scarcely now avail ; 

Your lamp-posts and your halters are as much 
Detested here as is the "little bell" 

Of Seward on the earth ; or as the church 
That tintinnabulates its foes to hell, 

Or hourly rings out such a peal for blood 

As would disgrace the worst Camanche code." 



148 



CXXIX. 

'But bells should ring 'gainst 'treason' as 'gainst fire !' 

"Ah, yes !" says Paul, ** I understand that word: 
Treason is ' treason' when against your * higher 

Law' of Puritantic conscience it is heard 
To thunder its appeal ; but when the dire 

Alternative presents to you the sword 
Or conscience of another, then the treason 
Is quite a different thing, for potent reason." 

CXXX. 

* But they refused to ring their bell when we 

Were all aglow with patriotic ardor, 
And thanking God for his great victory 

Vouchsafed to us against the * devil's guard,' or 
Those most perjured villains under Lee, 

Whose greatest glory 'twas to rob some larder, 
Or rich man's turkey-roost along the line, 
And when we proffered battle, to decline." 

CXXXI. 

' A most veracious history !" Paul replied, 
" But such an one as party hate must write 
To vindicate itself against all side 

And other issues, growing out the fight; 
But you forget how every patriot tried 

To stay this flood of party hate and spite, 
Engendered by your pulpits, and how fierce 
Was your denunciation of their course." 



149 



CXXXII. 

** But then they prayed for peace, when peace had been 
Disgrace and ruin to our cause." " But peace 

* In God's own time and way.' State just the sin 
That they were guilty of, no more, no less ; 

Then bring to heaven your prayers, and show wherein 
They breathed a heavenlier fragrance or more grace ; 

And tell us why your ' Center Church,' or people, 

Shot all the white-wing'd doves within their steeple." ^^ 

CXXXIII. 

* Because of their defilements !" " Yes, you mean, 
When vultures are your symbols, doves defile ; 

Though the Mosaic ritual makes them clean. 
And vultures, of all birds of prey, most vile ; 

The one goes out the olive leaf to glean, 
The other, like the raven, after spoil ; 

Or to * fly to and fro' the earth like Cain, 

With the brand on him of a brother slain." 

CXXXIV. 

' But they declined a * mutual council' when 

'Twas right and proper that the church should have one ;" 

*Yes, proper for the ' lion on the plain,' 

But not the ' lamb upon the hill' to brave one ; 

You've no doubt read the fable, apd have seen 
How graciously the lion seemed to crave one, — 

Proffering the lamb his velvet-footed paws. 

But quite concealing all his ugly claws !" 
10 



150 



cxxxv. 



' And they employed as * acting pastor' one 

Not * ministerially ordained' (so says 
Report of Council), and who seemed to shun 

Investigation in a hundred ways : 
Keeping his brother pastors on the run, 

By trotting out his * blacks' as well as ♦ bays ;' 
And wearing all the while, for them to note, 
A most provoking * ministerial coat' !" ^s 

OXXXVI. 

At this quintuple charge the devil grinned, 
And thought it time for him to drop an oar 

And help the Doctor's sails to catch the wind 
And belly out their canvass flaps once more ; 

And thus he dipped : " This pastor must have sinned 
Against his flock egregiously, before 

They got such Minor charges and grave laughter, 

With which to split the world's sides ever after !" 

CXXXVII. 

And dipped again : " This very wicked pastor 
Has led quite captive certain silly minds 

About the teachings, anent slave and master, 
Of the Apostles, as the Council finds ; 

And what is more heretical, drives faster 
With, than without, ecclesiastic 'blinds ;' 

Taking the ' ribbons' from his own * crack' driver. 

To show — he cares not for us a Dutch stiver !" ^^ 



151 

CXXXYIII. 

Again he plashed his oar : " And then he came 
Without ' credentials,' or so much as letters 

Of introduction to the great *I am,' 

Or nabob of the churches, with his fetters 

Ready to rivet on with proper aim ; — 

As teaching * youngsters' to regard their betters 

With due respect, if not with such devotion 

As to secure thereafter — prompt promotion." 

OXXXIX. 

And still he plashed : " Again he had the audacity 
To make a certain fling at Parson Gulliver, 

As being too ' Munchausenish,' when for veracity 
You'll scarcely find his equal, should you cull over 

A hundred difi'erent churches. True, tenacity 
Is his great foible, but with * wool' to pull over 

A church or two, like the recusant * South,' 

His greater foible is to stretch the truth !" 

CXL. 

Saint Paul here rose, and, placid as a sea 

Between two frowning head-lands, waved a gesture 

To Satan first, and then to Doctor D. ; — 
Who stood inspecting each the other's vesture 

As well as features, somewhat curiously ; 

And said, as he uprose ; " You'll simply rest your 

Cases here ; no further facts are needed, 

And if they were, your last would not be heeded. 



152 



CXLI. 

' This Council was convened for the revision 
Of such proceedings in the one below 

As stood out flagrantly, in the decision, 

The promptings of the malice they would show ; 

And time were wasted here, if mere derision 
Could find a soil in which to root and grow ; 

But earthly councils, it must be confest. 

Oft furnish little food, except for jest. 

CXLII. 

' 'Tis ordered that henceforth throughout the skies 
This earthly council stand ' Anathema- 

Maranatha' for its blasphemies. 

And be dismissed our hearing without day ; 

The church of God its findings scandalize. 
By usurpations of authority ; 

And making heaven and earth and hell and fate, 

All to a party creed subordinate !" 

CXLIII. 

With this consummate finding, Paul retires ; 

Leaving the Muse by laws of epic rhyme, 
As by the curfew, to rake up her fires 

With all their glowing embers, 'gainst such time 
As she to loftier theme perchance aspires, 

And takes once more her epic march sublime ; 
But ere she makes her curfew for the night. 
This parting strain the Muse would fain indite : 



153 



CXLIV. 

The saddest of all sights in heaven to see, 
Is a deluded soul just come from earth ; 

One that has lived a life of enmity, 

And deemed its hate a throe of second birth ; 

At none do angels weep more bitterly. 
Or hell send up a deeper shout of mirth ; 

And when that soul confronts the final wrath, 

How awful is the presence of its death ! 

CXLV. 

And oh, the mad delusion when a soul 
Mistakes excess of hate for righteousness ; 

And battens on its lymph as if 'twere all 
The aliment it had of special grace ; 

Unless it were its rancor, spleen and gall 
Combined together, as was once the case 

With the New Haven clergy, when they tried 

The immortal Whitfield on a rail to ride ! ^s 

CXLYI. 

Or rather notified him not to preach 

Or pray within their sheepfold ; if he did, 

A coat of tar and feathers he would catch, 
And on a rail, fantastically bestrid, 

Be posted out of town like any wretch 

That dared to preach when they had once forbid. 

But Whitfield, heeding not their wrathful threat, 

Proclaimed his Master on the public street. 



154 



CXLVIT. 

This Puritanic hate has come to be 
More dread than was the choler of Achilles, 

The wrathful son of Peleus ; and I see 
No antidote for it but in the Greeleys 

And Beechers of New England. They can slay 
The monster, if they will ; for on their bellies 

They've crawled all fawningly into his den, 

And can, to strangle him, do so again. 

CXLYIII. 

But others have worked bravely to this end : 

None more so than the young and dauntless preacher. 

Who feared not man but God ; and would not lend 
His office or his robes to be a teacher 

Of party politics, though earth should bend 

Her smiles upon him, and bid Fame to reach her 

Every honor down. He'd spurn them all, 

Rather than put upon his soul such thrall. 

CXLIX. 

How he has stemmed the current of this hate. 
Few now may know, and less perhaps hereafter ; 

But souls like his can bide their time and wait. 
They have no need of subterfuge, or craft, or 

Any thing but heaven, to vindicate 

Their course. Scorn, contumely, hate ; the laughter 

Of knaves and fools ; the jeer of gathered crowds. 

They heed no more than Socrates ' The Clouds.' 



155 



CL. 

Earth gives few nobler exhibitions than 

A brave man battling with the storms of fate, 

Unless it be that other, braver man, 
Who fearlessly confronts its storms of hate ; — 

Storms that are pitiless as partisan. 
And as remorseless as the grave to sate ; — 

To such a storm this youth has bared his breast, 

And bid the waves of passion do their worst ! 

CLI. 

But there's another, whom to name would be 

To index all the virtues in one man ; 
Brave, generous, true, and of integrity 

That scorns all refuge in the partisan ; 
Who looks out calmly on the stormful sea 

Of politics, where the mad breakers run. 
As if to catch his Master's words of " Peace, 
Be still !" and see the troubled waters cease. 

CLII. 

His thin white locks, pale cheek, and thoughtful brow, 
Bespeak the Christian man, and " full of years ;" 

One whom the world might honor, did it know. 
And, honoring, elevate the crown it wears ; 

And yet no honor that the world can show. 
Could so adorn as does his weight of cares ; — 

A weight that lightens with each day's return 

Of tasks and duties, ever nobly done. 



156 



CLIII. 

Reared in the morals of the olden school, 

Rich in endowments, and with learning graced ; 

Strict to observe himself the golden rule, 
Or line of duty for another traced ; 

Of plenty careful, yet of bounty full, — 
Giving as if the giver were most blessed ; 

His manner saying : " These poor gifts receive, 

And give Him thanks who grants the power to give." 

CLIV. 

With largess such as this, in which he shares 
The bounty heaven bestows on him in trust, 

A noble structure to his God he reai-s. 
And lowly prostrates there his head in dust ; 

Asking acceptance of repentant tears 
As a libation deemed by Him the first 

An erring soul should make to win the skies. 

And share with angels in its ecstacies. 

CLV. 

If noblest virtues can a name endear, 

That name is Hallock's, as the world must own ; 
Though priestly hates may scowl on him, and wear 

Their most indignant and imperious frown, 
That he should have the audacity to rear 

A church to the Great Shepherd Christ alone : — 
A sin so great in Puritanic eyes, 
It reaches heaven, and profanates the skies ! 



157 



CLVI. 



If largest forecast, or a mind to see 
" Before and after," in affairs of state ; 
If lofty thoughts that grasp futurity 

As with Apollo's fearful gift of fate ; 
If high resolves, and grand simplicity, 

Can make a Nestor truly good and great ; 
Then he, of all men in this modern time, 
Is thrice a Nestor, without Nestor's crime. 

CLVII. 

For he — the noblest Roman of us all — 
Retires, like Oincinnatus, from the strife, 

Exiled from duty by a fierce cabal 

That plays the tyrant with a nation's life, 

And seeks to put, as subjects under thrall, 

Both men and states, to hold its sway in brief: 

When crimes like these inflame the wrath of heaven. 

The posts of honor to the vile are given. 



I 



PREFATORIAL NOTE. 



The author deems it nece.ssary, for the better understanding of the 
several incidents alluded to in the course of the preceding poem, to 
give a brief history of the proceedings which led to the ecclesiastical 
and political ostracism of the South Church. This church was consti- 
tuted in the autumn of 1852, shortly after the completion of the 
beautiful church edifice, now standing on Columbus street, in the 
south-western part of the city of New Haven, and receiving its name 
from the circumstance of its location. This edifice, which is built of 
brown stone, from the celebrated Portland quarries, is one of the 
largest in the city, and for architectural simplicity and beauty of pro- 
portion, is unsurpassed by any similar structure in the State. It was 
erected mainly through the agency and munificence of GtERARD 
Hallock, at that time one of the proprietors and the senior editor of 
the New York Journal of Commerce, and was rented by him to the 
church society for " one barleycorn a year." In January, 1862, the 
church extended a call to the Kev. J. Halsted Carroll, who was then 
residing in Brooklyn, N. Y.. to supply the pulpit and act as Pastor for 
one year This call was accepted, and Mr. Carroll soon after became 
the acting Pastor of the church. His sermons, which were of the 
very highest order, and his eloquence, which had never been surpass- 
ed in any pulpit in the city, at once attracted general attention, and 
elicited the warmest encomiums from all who heard him. 

But it was soon discovered that he was not a political preacher ; 
that his sermons were all of a deeply religious character ; that " Christ 
and him crucified" was the one great, and almost exclusive theme on 
which he dwelt ; and that no persuasions, no threats or attempts at in- 
timidation, no incentives to popular favor — nothing that could be done 



160 



or said — served, in the slightest degree, to turn him aside from the 
straight hne of duty he had marked out for himself, in his ministerial 
labors. And what was more terrible still, he prayed for Peace ! for 
peace in God's own time and way, — not as man thinketh and willeth, 
but as the all-merciful Prince of Peace, the Great Head of tlie Church, 
might will and direct. This, and this alone, was his heresy ! To pray 
thus in New England, was in the highest degree schismatical, revolu- 
tionary, and unorthodox. The consequence was, that it drew down 
upon him the judiciary anathema of all the orthodox churches in the 
city. Not one would fellowship him, or in the slightest degree recog- 
nize him, as having any ministerial right, function, or duty whatever. 
He was at once morally, socially, politically and ecclesiastically- ostra- 
cised, and put under the ban ; and that not only by the clergy, but by 
the "loyal" portion of his own congregation. At the expiration of the 
year for which he was called by the church society, the opposition 
thus fanned against him by the clerical wing of the town, showed 
itself in all its virulence and animosity, among a portion of his own 
people. The hatred of the New Haven clergy cropped out in the laity 
of his own church, and loud complaints of " disloyalty" were heard 
against him on every side, — " disloyalty" as evinced by his prayers for 
heaven-sent, heaven- vouchsafed Peace ! But a majority of the church 
decided to retain him. This sent the minority oflT in *' ioyal" disgust 
from the church. They all asked for letters of dismission, which were 
promptly granted; and thereupon ''Secessia No. 2" existed, and had 
a pragmatic sanction. 

But, as the South Church was an independent organization, (not 
being consociated with the other churches of the State,) this left Mr. 
Carroll where he could not be ecclesiastically or otherwise reached by 
the dominant and domineering faction of the town. The hasty action 
of the minority in withdrawing as they did, having been reconsidered 
in caucus, it was decided that they should return to the church and 
demand an ecclesiastical council to right their wrongs! But, 

"Facilis descensus Averni : 
Sed revocare gradum, — 
Hoc optis, hie labor eat." 



161 

To get out of the church was easy ; but to get back again — there wa^ 
the rub. The society was rid of its marplots, and would not recognize 
them as having any longer any rights, not even those of a belligerent, 
in the church. This brought them to a new tack. They proposed a 
mutual council ; that is, a council in which the South Church, as one 
party, and some dozen other churches, as another party, should sit 
and pass upon their grievances ! This proposition was declined, for 
the same reason that the Lamb, in the Fable, declined the proffer of 
the Lion, when invited to descend from the hill-top into tlie flowery 
mead below. There was a good deal of pious wheedling to bring this 
nice little arrangement about; but it failed for the reason, that the 
Lion's claws were altogether too visible in the velvet-footed programme. 
There being no alternative left but to call an ex parte council, this was 
finally done. Accordingly, on the 21st day of December, 1863, an 
Ecclesiastical Council, composed of the pastor and a delegate from 
twelve churches in the State, was convened in the Orange Street 
Chapel, where its sessions were continued for three days. 

The first question to be decided was, how they were to take juris- 
diction of the case. The South Church was an independent society, 
never having been, as we have already stated, consociated with the 
other churches, or in any way dependent on them. It had built its 
own church edifice, organized its own society, employed its own pas- 
tor, (who happened in this instance to be a Presbyterian and not a 
Congregational clergyman,) and transacted its own business generally. 
To all intents and purposes, it was, so far as ecclesiastical discipKne was 
concerned, as separate from, and independent of, the Congregational 
Churches of New England, as the G-reek Churches of Russia, or the 
Romish Churches of Austria. But the Council, having thoroughly 
beaten the "legal cover," finally flushed up this proposition: "That 
an independent Congregational Church, not consociated, is, in effect, a 
consociated church, so far as its customs and usages are concerned, 
and its obligations to conform to them." On the strength of this 
extemporized canon, they took jurisdiction of the South Church, 
and proceeded at once to promulgate their several "findings." On 
the third day, these were given to the world in such a manner as to 



162 



mark an epoch in the ecclesiastical history of Connecticut. They gave, 
in all, ten specific allegations as found, every one of which violates 
some one or more of the ten rescripts of the Decalogue. The most 
important of these were, in substance, as follows: — That a "loyal" 
minority of a church constitutes its legal majority ; that a minister acting 
as "stated supply" has no right to be called "Pastor;" that Mr. Car- 
roll, as a Presbyterian clergyman, should have exhibited his " creden- 
tials" to the Congregational clergymen, before entering upon his 
ministerial duties in New Haven ; that Mr. Carroll had shown a culpa- 
ble want of "loyalty" in not preaching and praying politics; that 
somebody had said to somebody that somebody had said of somebody 
that somebody had said or done what was calculated to lead somebody 
else astray, on the all-important, grace-imparting, soul-saving dogma of 
" Loyalty 1" All this being found — nay, fully substantiated and proved 
— the South Church was thereupon abscinded, detached, cut off, insu- 
lated, and altogether unchurched generally, in its connection with the 
ecclesiastical bodies of Connecticut I The report of the Council, in its 
summary of " findings," is one of the most unique and logically ar- 
ranged documents ever given to the world. The charges follow each 
other in a chain of deductions as brilliant as they are connected, and 
forcibly remind one of the court scene in " Much Ado about Nothing," 
where Dogberry gives his immortal " summing up" (slightly para- 
phrased) as follows : 

" Marry, sir, they have comitted false report ; moreover, they have spoken ' disloy. 
ally ;' secondarily, they are all 'rebels' at bottom ; sixth and lastly, they have belied 
their profession ; thirdly, they have verified unjust things ; and, to conclude, they 
are lying knaves, and guilty of flat burglary !" 



NOTES TO CANTO THE FIRST. 



Note 1. Stanza I. 
" And by his side the last lost Pefi sate." 
The Peri is an imaginary being, or fairy, represented in the Persian 
mythology as the descendant of a fallen angel, excluded from Paradise 
until her penance was accomplished. 

Note 2. Stanza V. 
"If, like the Bellonarii of Rome, 
The blood they shed had only been their own." 
The Priests of Bellona, called Bellonarii^ consecrated themselves by 
incisions in their own bodies, and sacrificed to their goddess the blood 
that flowed from their own wounds. 

Note 3. Stanza VI. 
" On the mad revel and unseemly mirth, 
That, 'mid sepulchral horrors, filled the town." 
At no time in the history of the country, were there ever so many 
masks, routs, balls, pantomimes, theatrical comics, and operatic buffas, 
as during the war; to say nothing of the mad Parthenopes that fol- 
lowed in the wake of the army, and their disgusting orgies in the 
national capitol, which "sported" at one time no less than seventeen 
thousand of these female Sybarites, many of whom were employed in 
the public departments. 

Note 4. Stanza XIII. 
" As that by Perseus borne in starry field." 

Among the constellations. Perseus is represented with a sword in 
his right hand, and the head of Medusa in his left: 

" Perseus next, 

Brandishes high in heaven his sword of flame, 
j^nd holds triumphant the dire Gorgon's head, 
Flashing with fiery snakes." 



164 

Note 5. Stanza XV. 
" The fierce nine hundred thousand Tribune men — " 
The Tribune persistently clamored for the proclamation of emanci- 
pation, alleging that there was an Abolition reserve of nine hundred 
thousand men at the North, who had never smelt gunpowder, that 
would instantly rush to the field, if the proclamation were issued. 
It was issued, wheo a merciless conscription followed. 
Note 6. Stanza XIX. 
"Only it seemed his tympanum to shatter." 
Celestial ears are supposed to be accustomed to the constant din 
and clamor of war ; but the ecclesiastical strife, growing out of this 
"council," must have grated harshly on the celestial tympanum. 
Note 7. Stanza XXVIIL 
"Or Magellanic cloud, that holds its place." 
Magellanic cloud is the name given to a nebula not resolvable into 
stars by means of the larger telescopes. 

Note 8. Stanza XXVIIL 

'where Orphiucus rides 

His scaly monster, with his glistening sides." 

The constellation Orphiucus represents an old man with venerable 
beard, having both hands clenched in the folds of a prodigious serpent, 
which is writhing in his giant grasp. Homer mentions it ; and Manil- 
ius, in his Astronomicon, alludes to it thus: — 

" Next Orphiucus strides the mighty snake, 
Untwists his winding folds, and smoothes his back." 
Note 9. Stanza XXIX. 
" Along the old Chaldean Zodiac." 
The Zodiac is of Chaldean origin. No practical use is now made of 
it in Astronomy, except to indicate that region ot the heavens within 
which the apparent motions of the sun, moon, and the principal plan- 
ets, are confined. 

Note 10. Stanza XXX. 

— — -" where seraphs fly. 
Upon their angel errands through the sky." 
Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, thus alludes to the Milky-way : 
" A way there is in heaven's extended plain. 
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below, 
And mortals by the name of Milky, know ; 
The groundwork is of stars, through which the road 
Lies open to the Thunderer's abode ^ 



165 



Note 11. Stanza XXXII. 
" Her achromatic instrument to bear." 
The achromatic refracting telescope is among the most perfect in- 
struments now in use. 

Note 12. Stanza XXXIL 
" In vain attempts to get her parallax." 
To get the parallax of a heavenly body, is one of the favorite ele- 
ments of calculation among astronomers. It consists in finding the 
difference between the apparent and true place of a celestial object. 

Note 13. Stanza XL VII 
"He was the mighty 'kraken' of the church." 
" Kraken" is the name applied, during what may be called the 
"fabulous epoch of Zoology," to a marine monster of gigantic size. 
" Old Abe," with his happy faculty at suggesting rhymes, as shown 
in his interview with Lord Hartington, might hit upon a perfect rhyme 
for " kraken," and not go a thousand miles from New Haven. 

Note 1 4. Stanza XL VIII 
" He grappled with the ' South Church' as the kraken 
Did with the Dutch ship in the northern sea." 
In Rees' Cyclopedia, may be found an account of this fabulous 
monster's seizing a Dutch ship, in the manner described. 

Note 15. Stanza Lll 
"Jack Porpoise acting as the chief of scribes." 
The author hopes no one will think of making a personal applica- 
tion of this figure of " Jack Porpoise," to the Scribe of the actual 
Council. 

Note 16. Stanza LXII 

" Whose straight two-forty gait showed he was all fin." 

There is a story current among the " sports' of New Haven, that 

there was once a spirited little " brush" between two noted clergymen 

of the city, on one of the out-town Avenues, in which the " Deacon's 

bays" were most cruelly distanced by the "Parson's blacks." 

Note IV. Stanza LXXXIV. 
" And like Prometheus, chained on dreary isle." 
Prometheus, having stolen fire from heaven, was chained to a rock 
by Jupiter, and there tormented by a vulture that fed continually upon 
his liver. 

11 



166 

Note 18. Stanza LXXXIX. 
"The only classic genius it had known." 
It is hardly necessary to mention the name of Percival, in this 
connection. 

Note 19. Stanza XCI. 

" Held in a chapel in a street hard by." 
Since writing the "Vision," the author has ascertained that he w;is 
slightly in error as to the place where the ex parte Council was held. 
It was reported as having been held in the Orange street Chapel, and, 
not knowing that there were two streets in the city of that name, he 
very naturally confounded it with the Temple, which was used at that 
time for rehgious purposes, and was the only building of the kind in 
Orange street proper. We make this correction the more cheerfully. 
as it exonerates the devil from all participation in the proceedings of 
the Council, at that time and place. 

Note 20. Stanza CIX 
" Hard by the graves of the ' old Regicides.' " 
The graves of the Regicides are directly in the rear of Center 
Church. Some years ago a monument was erected there to the memo- 
ry of John Dixwell ; but the grave of his fellow compatriot lies still 
neglected. 

Note 21. Stanza CXI. 

"In boxes marked 'Prom Old Fort Kill 'em, damn 'em.'" 
In the celebrated "Sharp's Rifle" meeting, in the North Church. 
Henry Ward Beecher played the role of auctioneer in the biddings for 
rifles and men to go to Kansas. When a person of the name of Kil- 
lam responded to one of his urgent appeals for men, Beecher remarked 
that the name was decidedly suggestive of the " good work" they had 
in hand; while a Republican, more enthusiastic than discreet, in the 
galleries, cried out: "Yes, kill 'em, damn 'em!" Ever since then the 
church has gone by the name of the " Old Fort." 
Note 22. Stanza CXIL 
"Like bombs and rockets at Sebastopol." 
Vide Henry Ward Beecher's speech, in the North Church meeting, 
in which the identical sentiment and language are used. 
Note 23. Stanza CXIX 
" When it was sawed down by the Center people." 
According to Dr. Button's History of the North Church, so great 
was the hostility of the " Center people" to the building of a new 
church edifice in the city, that they actually sawed it down in the 
night, shortly after it was erected. 



NOTES TO CANTO THE SECOND. 



Note 1. Stanza I. 

" High on a throne of royal state, etc." 

The author prefers to locate Satan where the "orthodox" Milton 
places him, rather than invent any more exalted sphere for his activities. 

Note 2. Stanza IV. 

"by that fell apple, 



That damned the race and stuck in Adam's thrapple." 
This is unquestionably the origin of " Adam's Apple." But why it 
should have stuck in Adam's throat, and at the same time glided so 
smoothly down Eve's, has always been a mystery to me on physiolog- 
ical principles. As a theological mystery, it is explained satisfactorily 
enough, perhaps, on the hypothesis that the woman is always the 
more gullable of the two. 

Note 3. Stanza V. 
" And summoned Flamsteed's ghost by sundry raps, 
And old Mercator's." 
John Flamsteed, an eminent English mathematician and astronomical 
writer of the iTth century, was the first to invent celestial maps; as 
Mercator, a G-erman mathematician and astronomer of the same cen- 
tury, was the first to invent terrestrial maps, or represent a spheroidal 
body, like the earth, on a plane surface. 

Note 4. Stanza VI. 
" Whence lost Eurydice was snatched by force." 
It is stated of Orpheus, the husband of Eurydice, that he descended 
into hell after his lost wife, and actually bore her away from the em- 
braces of Pluto. 

Note 5. Stanza VIII 

" Who make Procrustean beds for men to lie on." 
Procrustes was an old northern radical and robber, who placed his 
southern captives on an iron couch, and, if too short, stretched them 
out, but if too long, lopped them off to fit. He is the genuine proto- 
type and ideal symbol of all radical reformers. Old Procrustes thought 
everybody ought to be of the same height and pliysical stature, and 



168 



his "lopping off" process was about as humane and rational as some 
of our modern reforms, which demand that everybody shall be equal 
to everybody else in every thing, color not excepted. 

Note 6. Stanza XIII. 
" The imp Asmodeus." 

Asmodeus is here made the shadow of the devil, for the reason that 
he always follows him, and is his special imp of mischief 

Noten. Stanza XIV. 
" Showed that knee-bending is his supple trade." 

The author has coupled the word Canaan with Nachash, because 
the latter term is not sufficiently expressive to include all the dark- 
skinned races, many of whom are neither serpent-worshippers, nor 
essentially servile in their nature. The topographical and other ob- 
jections to the use of the word Canaan, will mostly disappear when Vv^e 
recollect that the Hebrew language was originally employed, more 
perhaps than any other, to represent abstract ideas. The word Canah. 
or Chanali. represents, or has enclosed in it, a psychological truth ex- 
isting in nature ; and, with the addition of a single letter, becomes the 
cognomen of all servile races. The Kal form of the verb has been 
translated into Latin by genibflexit, in genua procidet, depressus est ani- 
mus, suhmisse se gessit ; or, in the English — he bends the knee — he falls 
on his knees — his mind is depressed — he acts' submissively. The term 
is expressive of the inner traits of the man, rather than his outvmrd 
characteristics. The prognathous negro, in his proclivities for serpent- 
worshipping and the readiness with which he " bends the knee" — 
submits to servitude — completely fills the psychological idea contained 
in the two words, Nachash-Canaan. 

Note 8. Stanza XXII. 
"As hangs the 'goose' in highfalutin' strain." 
** Everything is lovely, and the goose hangs high," is a quotation 
from that mythical individual known as the " first stump orator." 
Note 9. Stanza XXIII 
"This ' Afric nonsense' is the milk of boobies." 
Daniel "Webster once said, in speaking of Abolitionists, that he never 
knew one who did not have a " screw loose" somewhere in his intel- 
lectual or moral machinery. 

Note\(i. Stanza XL VII 
"Of 'Zion's bloodhounds' on the white man's track." 

The writer strongly objected to this term when he first heard it ap- 
to New England clergymen. But when he listened to the 



169 



envenomed speech of a learned D. D., of New Haven, and heard him 
demand a Northern army large enough to reach from the Atlantic to 
the Rocky Mountains, in order to sweep, as with a besom of destruc- 
tion, every white man, woman and child, in the South, into the Gulf of 
Mexico, he thought the word "bloodhound" altogether too mild a 
term. Hellhound would be more appropriate and justly merited. 
Note II. Stanza XL VIII. 
"Or future Sambos to adorn some niche 
Transceudently above the white man's reach." 
Those who have heard "Wendell Phillips on the subject of " misce- 
genation," or the infusion of negro blood into the white man's veins, 
will understand that, when this is once thoroughly accomplished, the 
white race will have reached its neplus ultra of developement ! 
Note 12. Stanza XLIX. 
" He is not our sister, nor our brother's mother." 

The author presents his compliments to " Artemus Ward," and hopes 
there has been no copyright infringement. 

Note 13. Stanza LIV. 
"Above your schools of dead divinity." 
The theological school of the present day is a grand dissecting room) 
in which your " grim doctor of divinity" stands over the dead body of 
religion with scalpel in hand, ready to cut it up into aiireds and tatters, 
that young " theologs" may carry them away for lifeless exhibition in 
the pulpit ! One may get the whole body of divinity at such a school, 
but it will be a dead body, without any vital religion. 

Note 14. Stanza LXII. 
"From the great ' Moon Hoax' to the incessant jar 
'Bout human rights in — Borioboolagha!" 

This institution " swallowed" the great " Moon Hoax" that was got 
off some twenty-five years ago or more, in onQ of the leading sensa- 
tional papers of the day ; while for the last ten or fifteen years, the 
principal theme for glowing orations at Commencement, has been this 
fruitful one of " huiiaan rights in — Borioboolagha !" In fact, nearly one 
half of the present graduates, seem to be lineal descendants of the 
"Jellaby Family." 

Note 15. Stanza LXIIL 
' ' At mis'genation, which must come to-morrow." 

" Quis 

Peccandi finem imposuit sibi ? Quando recepit 
Ejectum semel attrita de fronte ruborem ?" 

Jiivenal 
11* 



170 

Note 16. Stanza LXVI. 
" If not to keep himself as free from scandal. 

When \vomen chanced to come within his way." 
The number of " loyal" clergymen who fell during the war, has 
never been accurately computed ; but the number who have fallen 
since, has been estimated, by some graceless scamp, at a most frightful 
figure. Vide the PoUce Gazette reports. 

Note 17. Stanza LXXIL 
" Just as the Nereids — Neptune's fair-haired daughters." 
The Nereids, or Nereides, were the daughters of Nereus, and nymphs 
of the sea. Amphitrite and Galataea were among the most famous of 
these beautiful goddesses. They were generally worshipped in con- 
nection with Neptune, who took Amphitrite for his queen. 
Note 18. Stanza XO. 

' ample laurels twined 



For his own brow, in future jousts of mind!" 
In the more recent contests of this theological gladiator, the 
" laurels" have, by general consent, settled on another's brow. 
Note 19. Stanza XGIIL 
" "When such a youth inspired ' Platonic flame.' " 
The supreme nature of " Platonic love" is understood to be incom- 
prehensible to ordinary minds. But when one has once attained that 
intellectual and moral height, from which he perceives the three great 
Platonic ideas of truth, beauty, and order, in all their harmonical re- 
lations, this kind of love is no longer a vague impression, but a real- 
izing sense of the "fitness of things generally." 
Note 20. Stanza CXIL 
" Sewed on by this half-tailor." 
In a " passage" between two celebrated wits — the one a son of St. 
Crispin, and the other, a knight of the " Forlorn Goose," these two 
distiches were got off: 

"This life, though long, is but a span, 

An't takes nine ' cobblers' to make a man!" 
" This world, though wide, is full of evil, 
j^nd half a tailor makes a devil !" 

Note 21. Stanza CXVIIL 
'•'■ But I have learned that mental subtleties 
Mean simply this — to count the steps of fleas ! 

Aristophanes speaks, in one of his plays, of a class of men who 
arrive at such a pitch of folly as actually '' to count the steps of fleas.'' 



171 

Note 22. Stanza CXXIII. 

"the maddened flame 

That fired the fiddling mountebank of Rome." 
The shame of Nero did not consist in fiddUng, but in not leaving oflf 
fiddling, when Rome was on fire. So the shame of the New England 
clergy did not consist so much in lighting up the flames of civil war, 
as in adding fuel to them while they were already raging. 



NOTES TO CANTO THE THIRD. 



Note 1. Stanza II. 

" And bid the world * tear down the flaunting lie.' " 

For an intensely "loyal" poem on the American Flag, examine the 

files of the New York Tribune some year or two before the war. The 

South was then called on, with the rest of mankind, " to tear down the 

flaunting lie.^^ 

Note 2. Stanza F. 

" as with proper share of 

Our ' patent loyalty.' " 
The Repubhcan party is entitled to not only one, but to at least a 
dozen patents, on the word " loyalty." For the definition of the word 
has undergone as many shifts and changes as the party itself, in the 
last four or five years. 

Note 3. Stanza VII 
*' When they upreared the pillars of the state 
For their race only, and then smashed the slate !" 
This topic has been " the bellowing of the labyrinth" with the Abo- 
litionists, for the last thirty years. The labors of our Fathers promised 



172 



to be a magnificent work, and were so esteemed, until the government 
they made fell into Abolition hands, when it turned out to be an insig- 
nificant affair. 

Note 4. Stanza X. 

" The mad Centauri, in Thessalian bogs." 
The Centaurs were a fabulous race of beings, inhabiting a part of 
Thessalj, and carrying on a constant war with their neighbors, the 
Lapithse. They were represented as half horse and half man, with 
the animal instincts predominating. 

Note 5. Stanza XXIV. 

*' This stirred Saint Peter's choler, till he got 
As mad as a March hare." 
That Saint Peter was quick and choleric in action, is evidenced by 
the fact of his cutting off the ear of Malchus. 

Note 6. Stanza XXV. 
" After the Beecher fashion, that is, with 
A firm conviction that the devil's a myth." 
Among the more recent convictions of Beecher, is the belief that for 
God to have provided a hell for the Christianity of the 19th century, 
was in " horridly bad taste." 

Note 1. Slanza XXVI. 
" And sending word, as notice to the ' Grovernor,' 
That he to them the affairs of heaven might turn over!" 
This is carrying one's conceit of righteousness to the very pitch of 
the sublime. But Virgil gives a similar instance of the same kind of 
folly: 

"Flectere si nequeo superos, Archeronta movebo." 

Note 8. Stanza XXXI 

" a chine 

Or two of good jerked Missionary loin." 

The Fan, and several other tribes of negroes, in Central Africa, are 
still incorrigible cannibals, after all the efforts that have been made to 
Christianize them. 

Note 9. Stanza XXXIV. 
" As they grew crotchety, to air their whims." 
The writer once ran across an old Monkish legend in which this idea 
of the ofiQce of Saint Peter, was more seriously than quaintly expressed. 



173 



Note 10. Stanza XXXIX. 
" This upstart orator, that dares to pray 
For peace on earth in heaven's, not our -wslj I" 
When any reUgious denomination takes its own collective conscience 
as the standard of human infallibility, and erects thereon a Judicium 
Dei, for the punishment of the rest of mankind, hell itself becomes a 
paradise in comparison with the earth they inhabit. 

Note 1 1 . Stanza XL VIII. 

" more intensely chafed 

At prayers for peace and Union, than at hearty 
Shouts for a 'Rebel' victory." 
The only thing approximating a shout for a " Rebel victory" that 
the author recollects to have heard at the North during the war, was 
immediately after the terrible defeat of Burnside, when a prominent 
Republican expressed unbounded joy at the result, as it would bring 
" Old Abe" to his senses, and the War department to the necessity of 
demanding another half a million of men to put down the '• rebellion." 

Note 12. Stanza LI. 



-" Boston — the cleverest place alive 



For atheistic piety to thrive." 
The Boston clergy have so transcendentalized their religion, and 
walked so long themselves on a sea of mystery, that the miracle of the 
Savior, in walking on the sea of Galilee, is scarcely a matter worthy of 
their faith. With them, Christ is a divine man, just far enough in ad- 
vance of Plato to split the difference between the latter and the pulpit 
philosophers of the " Hub." 

NoteU. Stanza LI V. 

" what time the Puritan 

G-rew timely valiant, and from danger ran." 
The men who came over in the Mayflower would have shown more 
pluck, and saved the world less trouble, had they remained in England, 
and helped those great Puritans, Cromwell, Pym, Hampden and Eliot, 
fight out their battle with prelacy and kingcraft. True heroism 
stands up to its work everywhere It does not skulk, nor run off into 
a wilderness to vote itself the work of the Lord, or its possessors, the 
Lord's people. Luther did not run away from Worms, to go to Hol- 
land, or to any foreign shore to find a " Blarney-stone." He stayed 
and fought it out, at the gates of his own citadel. No wonder that the 
Puritans, who ran away from their own country to get rid of the battle 
of Armageddon, should banish Ann Hutchinson to death, hang old 
women, and hunt Roger Williams into Rhode Island. 



174 



Note 14. Stanza LX. 
"First call Ann Hutchinson and Richard Mather." 
Among the first ecclesiastical councils, of an ex imrte character, ever 
held on this continent, was that in which the doctrines of Ann Hutch- 
inson were pronounced heretical, and she banished from the colony of 
Massachusetts, to seek protection among the Indians. The same 
spirit that pursued this woman into the howhng wilderness, has since 
sought, in the name of a universal human brotherhood, to reduce the 
country into a state of almost universal human tigerliood; and, what is 
more, has very nearly accomplished the object of its seeking." 

Note 15. Stanza Jl CIV. 
"So stultify them with its blood-ebriety, 
That they mistake bedevilments for piety !" 

In Massachusetts, to serve a political opponent to a balmage of tar 
and a copious ornamentation of feathers, is regarded the highest duty 
a "Christian" can perform, unless it be a " salivary baptism," or a 
draught of aquafortis, from the pulpit, poured on the head of some 
Democratic church-goer. 

Note 16. Stanza CV. 
" As turning into black cats ' on the sly.' " 

This was actually one of the verified charges against the old women 
of Salem. 

Note 1 1. Stanza CXII. 

" on the authority 

Of Minor''s great minority-majority." 
The algebraical formulary, showing one to be equal to two, is not 
more ingenious than the method by which a " loyal" minority, in this 
case, was shown to be a legal majority. 

Note 18. Stanza CXVII. 

" Retaining all the dignity of earth, 
When intellectual giants had their birth." 
A story is told of Dennie, of the Portfolio, and Dr. D., when the two 
were forced to become bedfellows at a New Jersey inn, which illus- 
trates the character of the latter for '' superlative dignity." But the 
story is too long to repeat here. 

Note 19. Stanza G XVIII. 
"How, syllogistically, to trip and throw 'em," 
The Prex was great at intellectual wrestling, and joined in this sort 
of exercise with his pupils, to show how handsomely he could trip 
them up with a syllogism, or knock them flat with a " non sequitur." 



175 



Note 20. Stanza CXIX. 

-"and promptly take their tiles off, 

Whenever they saw him, though they might be miles off." 
This was formerly one of the laws of College, and was most rigidly 
enforced before the unostentatious " days of Day and Stanley." 
Note 21. Stanza GXXV. 
"Of laurels for some Southern victor twined, 
Won in her splendid tournaments of mind 1" 
It does not require the recollection of the " oldest inhabitant" of 
New Haven, to recall the time when it was a matter of special con- 
gratulation with their friends from the South, that some student from 
that section, had borne off the highest honors of College. 
Note 22. Stanza GXXXIL 
" And tell us why your Center Church or people, 
Shot all the white-wing'd doves within their steeple." 
This was an actual occurrence, during the second year of the war. 
The sexton of that church, either personally or by proxy, spent the 
better part of two days in shooting doves from the belfry. 
Note 23. Stanza CXXXV. 
" And wearing all the while for them to note, 
A most provoking ' ministerial coat I' " 
The clerical objections raised against the Rev. Mr. Carroll, while 
outside the pulpit, were pretty evenly divided between his " minis- 
terial coat" and " fast horses." 

Note 24. Stanza GXXXVII. 
" Taking the ' ribbons' from his own ' crack' driver, 
To show — he cared not for us a Dutch stiver 1" 
It was this perfect indifference of Mr. Carroll's, as to what opinion 
the New Haven clergy might, or might not, entertain of him, that so 
terribly annoyed them, during the first year or two of his ministry in 
the city. 

Note 25. Stanza CXL V. 



when they tried 



The immortal Whitfield on a rail to ride." 
This historical incident should not be forgotten. The spirit which 
prompted the persecution of Whitfield, is the same as that leveled 
against Mr. Carroll, the only difference being, the intervening time be- 
tween the ministry of the two men. 



On 





ERRATA. 


page 35, 20th line, for figures " 10" (reference) read fig. " 19." 


" 44, 4th ' 


' " " the same church," read " this same church." 


47, 23d ' 


' " " sons of Beecher's'' '' " sons of Beechersy 


59, 7th ' 


' " " of her nterati," " " of all her Hterati." 


75, 20th ' 


' " *-how/ar of any," " "how /ew; if any." 


81, 18th ' 


' " " though 57iM< from," " " though 57ioi from." 


" 82, 18th ' 


' " "asm the sea," " " as is the sea." 


84, 4th ' 


' " " of ^/ios% hue," " " of fir/ias% hue." 


'• 102, 23d ' 


' " "cZrawUhe rein," " " c^re^i? the rein." 


" 127, 10th ' 


' " "^ome/iow," " ^^ somehow.'''' 


" 144, 24th 


' " "fig. "0,"(ref.) " "fig. "20." 



